


Mating a little Bee

by jisko2ijsko



Category: Transformers: Prime
Genre: First Time, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Memory Loss, Molesting, Plug and Play Sexual Interfacing, Sexual Assault, Slow Romance, Violence, does this count as rape?, interfacing, mention of rape, no idea what to name this, probably happy ending?, slow update, sorry for that
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-22
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2018-02-18 10:41:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 44,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2345459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jisko2ijsko/pseuds/jisko2ijsko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bumblebee enters one of his heats and decides to go for a drive. Sadly Soundwave seemed to be on a flight and the con seems to like the little bee in heat</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea what i am doing XD  
> i will go with the story as i go.  
> sugestions are welcome and reviews are loved :D

There used to be more like him, more half flyers. Sure, there hadn’t been a LOT of them, but enough to make him feel… normal. That had changed though. He had always lived in a time of war. But when he had still been a youngling there always had seemed to be more like him.

Bumblebee always wondered where the others had gone. He knew that his carrier had been a grounder and his sire had to have been a flyer. Or he wouldn’t have had his doorwings. 

The mixing of grounders and flyers had always been there. Not a lot because most flyers thought of grounders to be ‘too less’ for them. The mixing was easy really. If your carrier was a grounder and your sire a flyer the sparkling would be a grounder with wings and extra boosters. If it was the other way around you would have a flyer sparkling with grounder armour. 

He had asked Ratchet once why it was so bad to have mixed coding like he had. Ratchet explained that there was nothing wrong with it. That the mixed coding was positive most of the time. The medic had pointed at the youngling at that. Bee had been a grounder. But his armour was lighter and he himself had been smaller. Thanks to this and the extra boosters had he been faster then any other grounder, with exception on Blurr but that mech would challenge the speed of light to a race and make it a close finish. For the half-flyers it would also have been positive. The flyers would have thicker and stronger armour. They would have been more able to move and race over the ground and would have been just stronger.

The mixing was still looked down upon though. Which had always confused bumblebee. Whenever mechs and femmes found out that Bee had mixed coding they would look at him as if he had two helmets or look at him with pity.

He hated the pity.

Ratchet had told him to ignore the looks and just do his best. 

And he did just that, He worked his way up the ranks and became Optimus Primes personal scout.

So why was he thinking about it now?

Easy.

Heat. Cycle. Was. Like. Pit.

Easy as that.

Turns out that the heat cycle for mixed coding’s was a bit tricky. Normally when a mech or femme enters heat cycle they sent out a scent and frequency to make clear that they are ready to mate. Grounders sent out a grounder frequency and flyers a flyers one. Yes, you guessed it right. Those with mixed coding could receive the signal but not sent the right signal for either party. 

That wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was that their scent wasn’t right. Grounders wanted a strong scent. While flyers wanted a good smelling one. Not sure what they meant with that. He had just heard flyers say that their partners didn’t ‘smell nice enough’ to mate though. His own scent was for as far he knew, too soft to be noticed by the grounders and not nice smelling enough for the flyers. Which was really annoying if you were in your heat cycle and no one in your base seemed to notice.

Like how he was now.

Bumblebee once again let out a beeped groan as he let his helmet fall on top of his table. He had been in his heat cycle for about six earth days now and it wasn’t getting better. it wasn’t his first heat though, he had had multiple before. His first two had been awkward and uncomfortable. His third heat had he told Cliffjumper when he had gotten to frustrated. The red autobot had been willing to help and together they had worked though his heat. 

He could take care of it himself but he preferred that no one walked in on him then which was more then impossible in the base. 

Bumblebee could feel his frustration growing and was about to snap when he got an idea. Why not just go outside? Search for a nice quiet place. Get it over with and go back with a clearer head! Bumblebee rose from his place but stopped. He couldn’t just walk up to Optimus. Their leader was still busy with the decoding for the next relic. The yellow scout looked around and saw that everyone was doing his own thing. It had been quiet and no one would really have anything against him going for a drive.

With that thought Bumblebee left the base after telling Bulkhead that he would go for a drive. 

Once Bumblebee was out on the streets he felt better. The road under his wheels felt amazing and he let his motor growl as he drove off.

Bumblebee let the road take him away from the desert and away from whatever city or town he past. He let his motor go full out.

Why couldn’t he just have a normal scent? A scent noticeable for someone. Anyone! He would feel so much better if he could have that. He had noticed it himself that he had entered the heat cycle. He had notice how he had walked a little slower to get his scent with the others. He had noticed that he kept sending out his frequency. But no one had noticed. 

Bumblebee shook himself out of that thought, he just needed to get some of the heat out of his system and then he would be fine.

After about three hours of driving the yellow scout found a forest. He made his way between the trees and kept walking until he was sure he was secure enough.

He sat down on the ground and checked around him one more time. Making sure that no one was close by. He knew that no one was, he took a deep vent and sat back against a tree. Just one moment for himself, a moment to finally get this heat to at least lay back. 

His servo slid down his chestplates and slowly towards their destination. His servo touched his pelvis and he let out a beeped groan. The noise was loud and With his other servo the scout removed his mouthguard, better not make to much noise and attract attention. He put it next to him and returned his attention to the servo on his pelvis. It felt so good. He let his servo slowly stroke his pelvis and with his other he went to stroke his own tights. He opened his spike and valve covers and let his servos make their ways there. The moment he touched them he got lost in the pleasure and heat.

.~,~.

Most found heatcycles amazing and at the same time annoying. Amazing because you had a good few orns full of pleasure and you can just enjoy the good things.

Bad side. You tend to forget whatever happened in the heat cycle. Many couples had gotten bonded over it by mistake and you would wake up with someone you never meet before.

Because of this most wanted to be around friends and have a partner who wasn’t in their heat and could control themselves.

Bumblebee groaned and let a smile grace his face. He felt so much better. His heat had calmed down and it was bearable. He knew that his heat would return at least one more but for now it was fine.

He would need to go back to base soon but for now he would enjoy the warmth and sound of the other spark.

…

…

…

Wait… other spark?

Bumblebee forced his systems to reboot sooner and forced his optics online. The first thing he saw that he was laying with his helmet on someone else’s chest. Had someone from the base followed him and helped him out or something? Bumblebee offlined and onlined his optics again and stared at the dark blue chest. The scouts processor was still slow after his first heat moment but somewhere he realized that none of the autobots at base had that color scheme.

He raised himself with his arms and looked at the mech who was laying under him. Bumblebee took in the visor covered face and the decepticon symbol and jumped back and falling over. Soundwave was still recharging as Bumblebbe looked himself over and the con. He could see the lubricate on both of them and he scanned his own systems. 

Bumblebee had left panic behind and had straight gone into a panic attack. He had… oow… no… he had… had he? 

The scans returned with saying that there hadn’t been any pleasure in his valve and his spike had just had so much… so most likely no interfacing.

This however didn’t help bumblebee calm down. He stood up and saw that his mask was still laying on the place he had left it at. He picked it up and walked away slowly. Hoping that he wouldn’t wake up the con. He saw a river and quickly washed himself off. One he was done he run and drove away.

“ **This Can’t have happened… IT CAN’T!** ” Bumblebee broke all the speed limits on his way to base.

.~,~.

Bumblebee didn’t feel better once he was back at base. In matter of fact. He felt worse. How was he going to tell the others what happened?! he couldn’t even remember it! He forced his processor to analyse the time between when he first touched his pelvis and to when he woke up, but nothing came up, no data, no video (bumblebee was happy about that one) not even the slightest information that it ever happened.

Bumblebee let the air flow though his vents and rose from his hiding place, hiding place was his room, and left to go meet his end. He couldn’t tell Optimus because he was busy… Which meant that he would have to tell Ratchet.

“ **Do you hate me primus?** ” Really, what had he done to deserve this? 

He was much quicker in the medbay then he had wanted. He opened the door and walked in. Ratchet was working on something.

“ **Hey Ratchet, do you have a moment?** ” Ratchet shook his helmet “Not now kid. I am busy, Is someone offlining?” Bumblebee shook his helmet “ **No, but-** ” Ratchet cut him off “Then I don't have time right now. If someone isn’t offlining then it can’t be to bad.”

And that was the scouts clue to leave. And leave he did. Bumblebee entered his room again and sat on his berth. No, no one was dying. But if this comes out he may as well be.

-  
-  
-

Everyone was an idiot. 

That is the conclusion Soundwave had long ago made and it somehow still counted. Of course this conclusion didn’t count for Lord Megatron but all the others it did count for.

Soundwave typed away in the warships harddrive as he tried to ignore the stares of the vehicons. He was always here, always. So why do they still see him as something that shouldn’t be there? Or that it is weird to see him.

He didn’t need to be telepathic to know that they thought that. He also knew what the other officers were thinking. Starscream was plotting once more, Black Arachnid was plotting herself on how to take care of Starscream and get the title of second in commend. She was also worrying about Soundwave himself because she saw him as a large treat. Good thinking. Knock out was thinking about his finish again and breakdown was thinking about doing some finish mixing with Knock out. 

Nothing special and Soundwave turned his attention back to the warship. He never searched Megatron’s thought because that would have been disrespectful. And Soundwave would never disrespect Lord Megatron. His leader was an honourable ex-gladiator and Soundwave would make sure that everyone treated his leader with the respect he deserves. 

Soundwave heard the door open and he didn’t let that distracted him. He heard the heavy steps of his leader approach. 

“Soundwave. Report.”

Soundwave nodded and let a record of Starscream play “Everything is going as planned my lord.” Megatron nodded and watched over the troops. 

Nothing really happened that day cycle. Just the same old stuff, though Soundwave could not explain why his spark was burning well he could. He was a flyer after all, he needed to be in the air once in a while. The sun was almost at its highest point when Megatron turned towards Soundwave.

“Soundwave. What was the last time you went for a flight?” Soundwave didn’t pause with his work as he answered “Not… Of impotents…” Megatron nodded and thought “You have to go for a flight. I can’t have a glitching communication chief.” Soundwave stopped his typing and nodded “Understood… my lord.” Soundwave turned and left the bridge. He walked straight to the hanger. Set Laserbeak to watch the troops and left the Nemesis. 

.~,~.

The wind was amazing. Soundwave was enjoying his flight. No missions. Just some time to enjoy the feeling of the air on his wings. The possibility to just fly. A time observe the different levels in the air. To feel the pull of gravity. To let the scents of the planets vent though him. To-

Soundwave almost stopped in the air. Instead of stopping he began to circle around. What was that scent? It smelled so different then anything he had ever smelled before.

It was difficult to explain, it was a very recognizable scent. It smelled sweet but not the overly sweetness Starscream had hanging around him. Soundwave simmered at the memory of it. It had been so overly sweet it had almost burned his olfactory sensor. This scent, even though strongly existing, but it wasn't that ‘in your faceplates’. It felt softer and because of this Soundwave was be able to let the scent wash over him completely. 

Soundwave flow in circles until he could pinpoint from where the scent was coming. It seemed to come from somewhere in the forest beneath him. Soundwave fell the very start of annoyance in him. He didn’t want to land and make his way though it walking. But he wasn’t sure what was giving off the scent and it could be one of those organic things called plants.

Soundwave circled a few more times before spotting a good landing place. After making his way down he walked towards the edge of the forest. He studied the treeline for a while before spotting a good entrance point. From there it was just following the scent. The closer he got the more he felt the air heat up around him. Soundwave was trying to think of a time when that had happened before. It felt a bit like what Knock out would feel whenever Breakdown had gone into one of his rare ‘heat’s. The heat cycles weren’t anything special on the Nemesis and Megatron just let his soldiers deal with it whenever they got one. “Better get it over with then let it get in the way of the Decepticons plans” His lord had once said. Though it may have been only that way because Starscream happened to be in heat and Megatron had only been thinking about that fact at the time.

Of course, the two had gone back to almost killing one other when the heat cycle had been over with. 

The heat cycles were something everyone on the ship seemed to look forwards too. Of course not the mechs who got into it. seeig as they wouldn’t remember much of it. But the others always seemed to be unable to focus on anything else. 

Soundwave of course knew what happened with a heat cycle. The sensor net would become more sensitive and the spark would be more willing to join another.

He himself had never enter in suchs immature acts that involved that. He had gone though his first heat as any other. He learned what it was but seemed to be indifferent about them. The heat cycle didn’t really effect him. The medics figured out it was because he was be able to create and have his cassettes. His spark didn’t seem to need another partner after that, and that had been just fine with him.

Soundwave stopped as a new wave of the scent washed over him.

Heat cycle.

This had to be the scent of a heat cycle. 

And as much as he knew he should just turn around, knew that it shouldn’t effect him as it did. He just couldn’t. His spark was demanding him to find out.

Soundwave would only follow the orders of his leader. But his leader had said to go out. And his spark wasn’t going against his lord’s order. In matter of fact, his spark wanted him to stay out longer. And if that meant discovering from who the scent was coming from then that was just side business.

Because Soundwave knew there was someone else out there. Going though their heat cycle. And Soundwave also knew that it wasn’t anyone from the Nemesis. But that didn’t seem to spark anything but more curiosity in him. His spark felt warm and was pushing him towards the heat the other spark seemed to be in. 

He soon found just who had been giving the scent off. The yellow scout. He was sitting against a tree servos in his pelvis area slowly touching whatever came on his path. Soundwave just stood there, frozen. He knew he should be doing something, but his processor seemed to have gone offline and his spark was burning in his chestplates. Optics behind the dark visor traced over everything they could see. Yellow armour, heated by the energy and with the moist air. Damp was appearing on that shining yellow but the owner of them didn’t seem to see that as important.

A soft half muted moan was heard by the silent con. 

Soundwave stared as the yellow bot let his head rest against the tree and the bot bit his derma. Soundwave focused in more as he slowly walked closer, his spark screaming to get closer, the bot’s throat was scarred. Soundwave knew how this came. His lord had long ago punished the scout for not listening and telling them what Optimus Prime had been up to. But now the scars seemed to show something else to Soundwave, not just the brute strength of his lord. But also the survival strength the scout himself possesses. 

Soundwave had halved the distance that had been between him and the scout. From here he could see the fuel lines between the gasps of armour. The well-developed cables that made this mech be able to move. 

Grey purple optics hidden behind a visor traced lower. They watched skilled servos work on a black with yellow spike. Soundwave didn’t notice his own temperature rise, or his own pelvis heat up for that matter. Had he noticed he would have been more worried about his own body weird reactions.

But those servos and digits were ooow so distracting. 

Soundwave let the scent wash over him. And noticed that he didn’t get a new wave of it in his sensors. Soundwave checked his surroundings and noticed that the wind had turned. It was now going towards the yellow scout instead of towards him.

Soundwave noticed that the servos seemed to freeze. The con looked up and saw two with pleasure drowned optics look at him. The yellow scout let the air vent though himself and seemed to give of a sound that sounded a lot like a purr. Soundwave stared as the scout’s complete focus seemed to redirect towards himself. The bot tried to stand up but motor skills weren’t that easy when in heat. The scout seemed to understand this and instead crawl towards the con.

Only now Soundwave noticed that he was sitting on the ground. Somewhere in his staring he had sunk to the ground and he had stayed there.

And now the in heat autobot was so close to him. he could feel the heat coming off from the armour. Though the scout didn’t just stop there. He used still steady servos to pull himself partly up and almost into the cons lap. The autobot put his lower face to his neck and took a deep vent. And purred again.

Soundwave knew he was supposed to do something now. And he was almost sure it wasn’t holding the bot so close and surly not letting the heated scent fill his processor. And he really shouldn’t except those smart and curious servos to follow his armour like that. So sure. So nice… so… good…

A deep purr sounded directly next to him and Soundwave fell his arms circle closer around the yellow bot. Everything felt so nice. So good and warm. He didn’t mind it that he wasn’t in control. That purring and those servos made everything alright. 

A servo touched his steaming hot pelvis and his spike cover snapped open. Soundwave fell a small sting but didn’t concentrate on that. No those smart servos had turned to playing with his feelers and it felt amazing~

Visor covered optics looked down, slightly curious as to what the sting had been and saw his own spike, which was new seeing that he had never bothered to let his seal be removed. The thought left him when one of those servos had found his spike and started to slowly stroke it. Had Soundwave been able to think logical before then that ability left him completely now. He was willing to stay there forever and just feel like this his whole lifetime. Then another strong wave of that amazing scent washed over him and he opened his optics again. The yellow scout seemed so close to something, metal heated up, optics half closed. Soundwave wanted to see more of it. 

The yellow scout seemed to be able to guess what he wanted, or the bot had just enough of waiting. He moved around until his own spike was straight next to soundwaves and covered both of the spikes with his servos. Soundwave gasp as a shot of pleasure shot though him. He heard the scout let out another moan as he started to move his servos up and down the spikes.

The heat. The heat not only from himself but also from those servos and most of all from that spike pressed up against his own was enough to send Soundwave crashing into his overload. That blast of heat seemed to be enough to knock the scout over in his own. The face of the smaller bot showed only pleasure and seemed to pulls it. Soundwave stared as the scout fell into recharge against him. Soundwave fell back into the earth ground and held the scout close.

His systems were drained of energy and he did the only thing that made sense to himself at the moment and let himself fall into recharge with his yellow bot in his arms.

.~,~.

The next moment he onlined he noticed that it was colder. Much colder. Soundwave sat up and noticed that his scout wasn’t in his arms anymore. He looked around but couldn’t see him. He let his smell sensors do overwork. Searching for that one scent. He smelled it. it was almost gone but still there. It lead him past a small river. Soundwave sighed and started to think. Clearly the autobot had came out of recharge before him and had panicked. He must have left after quickly cleaning himself up. 

Soundwave looked at himself and saw that his lower half was covered in blue lubricant. He looked at the water and cleaned the prove off of him. 

Soundwave looked around one last time and left the forest, once he was outside he transformed and made his way back to the warship.

He landed on the deck and walked inside. On his was to his room he crossed paths with Megatron.

“I see that you are back Soundwave. Did the flight calm you down?”

Soundwave looked though his recordings and played a few off “Flight.. enjoyable… Thank you lord.” Megatron nodded and walked away, pleased with what Soundwave had said.

Soundwave entered his own quarters and sat down on his berth. Laserbeak sensed her masters unusual mood and flow inside the room. landing on his shoulder.

There was no need for words between Soundwave and his cassettes. He could much easier share information with them then anyone else. They knew it when he wanted them to know. Laserbeak understood that Soundwave wanted to think himself and lied down on the berth, soon in recharge.

He hadn’t told Megatron. From everything that was the point that surprised him the most. He had always told Megatron everything to the smallest details when it came to the autobots.

But now… he just… didn’t. He didn’t have a logical reason for it. He should just think this over for some more time. That should help.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> look at that! there is more :D  
> hope you enjoy.  
> and please. if you review. please, no notes on the grammar. i know it is horrible. i just want your guys oppinion on the story :)

A week. A week filled with stress, worry and slowly increasing heat. That is what bumblebee had to go though after his run-in with Soundwave. Bumblebee wasn’t willing to think of it in any other way, he wasn’t even sure what to make of this. It was a week ago and he hadn’t been able to find the right moment yet to talk to anyone about it. It also seemed like Soundwave hadn’t told Megatron yet. Which honestly surprised bumblebee more then anything and that, again, had him worrying. Why didn’t the TIC tell his leader what had happened? What if he had already told and Megatron was planning something!

Bumblebee groaned as another small wave of heat hit him. His heat cycle was still running and was now worse then it had been before. Well, before he had been able to go on longer with the heat. Now, he somehow needed to keep it down while his heat had already had a taste of satisfaction.

His wings were inching for some kind of attention, and no matter what he tried he hasn’t be able to get them to calm down. He had tried everything he could think of, but it just wasn’t enough. This is one of the many reasons he hated heat cycle.

“Bumblebee?” Bumblebee shot up and turned to see Optimus standing there. “ **Yes sir?** ” the scout asked, Optimus replied with his normal calm voice “Are you willing to scout the area around the Rocky Mountains? We haven’t checked the whole area there yet.” Bumblebee was already in his alt-mood by the exit.

“ **Of course sir! No problem! Right on my way!** ” the doors opened and bumblebee was already speeding off, trying to burn as much as energy off as he could. He sped though the desert and left it soon behind him as he sped of towards the mountain.

Unnoticed to him somewhere in the desert had he been spotted by Laserbeak, who followed him towards the mountain.

.~,~.

The cooler and fresh air was nice. It cleaned his vents and cooled his overheated frame. He spends the following two days just racing over the mountain trails trying to burn off more of the heat cycle energy.

He made sure to take plenty of breaks to cool his frame with some of the ice-cold water in the small lakes around the mountain but it never seemed to help much.

Until now, he hadn’t noticed anything yet and so hadn’t had anything yet to comm. back to base. But it seemed like that the alone time was doing wonders for him and his heat seemed to calm down slightly. As long as there weren’t any possible mates nearby it seemed that his heat didn’t see any reason to keep all the energy concentrated on it.

Bumblebee was slowly scanning closer to the mountain for any trace for energon.

The view was of course beautiful. That observation had been made by the start of his scouting trip and it still stood strong. Bumblebee was always surprised at the nature that grew on this planet. Cybertron had been made of metal with everything on it. So the green and the many other colored plants were always a surprise to him.

A new reading on his scanners had him look up surprised.

An energon signal.

Bumblebee started his way towards the reading. :: **Bumblebee to base. I have found an energon reading. I am going towards it now.** :: Bumblebee made his way over the rocky surface towards what seemed to be a natural platform with a cave by it. ::Base to Bumblebee, we have received your message:: the line itself sounded static and wasn’t coming though completely. :: **Bumblebee to base. Message received. Line is breaking up. I will report with my findings later. Bumblebee out.** ::

Bumblebee made his way into the cave and scanned it again. The readings were there, but not much. Bumblebee looked around again but couldn’t see anything. After searching the cave he walked out again and checked the mountain wand in the hope of seeing anything. But he didn’t spot any energon.

He looked around on the platform but, again, didn’t see anything. Well, he saw a LOT, just not any energon. He checked his readings again and it said that it was right behind him. He turned again and saw a small energon crystal laying by the entrance of the cave. The scout activated his sensors to the max but still couldn’t detect any other presence. He slowly walked over to the crystal. He scanned it and found that it truly was energon.

Next thing he noticed were two long arms warp around him. “ **What the pit!** ” the two servos made their way up to his translator and removed it quickly and carefully. Bee saw his mask fall to the ground as the servos made their way towards his chest-plates. He looked down at them and recognized them to his horror immediately. The scout started to struggle more but the spy seemed to ignore it and pull him closer to his own chest-plates. The autobot’s wings quivered as one of those servos went up to stroke it. Instead of listening to the scout, the wing twisted towards the servo.

The servo stroked the wing slowly and the other servo moved up towards his faceplates and slowly stroked his fuel lines by his scarred neck. The autobot felt his heat cycle starting to kick up again. Bumblebee tried to move away but it seemed like Soundwave had called out those feelers of his and with those he made sure to keep the scout from moving.

The touches kept up, one servo mapping out his right wing while the other moved over his chest-plates.

Bumblebee tried to keep his thoughts in line. Tried to not surrender to the touches. But it was so hard! They knew just were to touch. Only those touches to his wings were enough to make him want to melt. He had to do everything to not sink to the ground and just let his heat go lose.

The servo on his chest had been making its way downwards and was now slowly massaging his hip plating. Bumblebee bit his derma to keep the moan inside but his engine let out a small purr. As the touches increased, his processor seemed to slow down and grow hazy. He tried to keep his mind focused but it was becoming a lost mission. He tried to comm. the base for help but only heard static. The servo on his hip slowly moved to his pelvis and the caught autobot tried to move away. That however wasn’t possible as he bumped into the mech who was still standing behind him.

The scout couldn’t stop the loud moan and purr as the servo started to massage the yellow pelvis. He was so focused on trying to move away that he didn’t hear the answering purr of the other engine.

The servo seemed to speed up just a bit and bumblebee felt his heat cycle becoming dominant.

His processor was in a state of bliss as he forgot what was going on.

Why was he here again?

Those touches felt soo nice…

Mmmh…

His legs seemed to loose their strength.

Luckily something stopped him from falling and the touches just kept coming.

So good… so nice… so warm.

.~,~.

The onlining of a processor was always a lot of work. Normally when the cybertronions went to recharge they kept part of their processors online. This made them be able to go though more information and make sure that their systems were running optimal. It was a basic thing to do for them.

So when a processor had gone into a forced offlining, be it was medical use or because of damage, it was always a lot of work to get them to work again.

Bumblebee groaned as his processor didn’t want to online the moment his other systems did. It was disorientating and just plain annoying to deal with.

A pang of pain shoots though his body and Bumblebee forces himself to relax and let his processor relax. The pain disappeared and the scout decided to wait to let his processor fully online. He wasn’t sure why his processor had shut down in the first place but he was sure he would find out.

He waited and soon the world seems to return. His optics and hearing started to work again and bumblebee heard the pulsing of a spark other then his own.

A very strong déjà vu hit him and he tried to force his optics to online quicker.

Once they did online he saw a, sadly, familiar dark blue chassis. He tried to move away when he noticed that he was stuck. The autobot looked down and let out a silent gasp.

He laid on his side on the other mech. Servos were tied against one other by one of the silent mech’s feelers and pressed close to his own chest plates. His legs were slightly pulled up and another feeler keeping his pedes together. Lastly, there were arms around him pulling him close to the others chest.

Bumblebee wasn’t sure what to make of this information, or about the situation to begin with. He tried to move but the feelers and arms just pulled him closer.

Bumblebee was close to panic but he forced himself to stay calm. He had been in far worse situations. He just needed to stay calm and free himself, clean himself because he could still feel the sticky lubricant on his plating. Then get to base and see if he can get Ratchet to help him with this… this thing… he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to think of this anymore.

The scout focused on the problem at hand, he would decide later how he would explain this to his team, first he needed to get out. With care he tried to pull his servos away, slow and steady. The feeler did not drag them back, which was good. He pulled until the feeler was almost lose, by that time his servos were at the lowest side of his mid-section plating, his stomach as his human friend liked to call it. He gave the lightest pull he could and he freed his servos from the feeler.

The victory was short lived however, the feeler rushed towards his servos. His servos had because of the pull ended almost next to his pelvis. The feeler shot around his servos and tied them to one other, instead of pulling them back to the original position, and tied them to the closest thing, meaning the scout’s own pelvis. The feeler sneaked between his legs and come back around and tied the servos there.

Bee had to bite his derma to keep the moan from escaping.

He so hated his heat cycle and the overly sensitive sensors.

A small pop-up from his processor appeared to tell him that his energy was lower then 27% meaning that his system would force him back into recharge again within a few minutes. The yellow mech felt the meaning of that sink in, and had to force himself to stay still. If he started to move too much then Soundwave would just use more power keep him down, and he really didn’t want him to move his lower feeler.

Sadly, the scout truly didn’t have any idea how to get out, he slowly fell his systems shut down. He tried to keep himself out of recharge. Recharging meant letting his processor go on stand-by. This again meant to let his guard down which would leave him defenceless.

He moved just slightly to move away from the lower feeler. The feeler however seemed to like the still warm and wet spot and moved back towards it, making sure to rub up to it before settling down.

Bumblebee felt his motor purr at the movement and the arms around him seemed to pull him closer at the sound.

The scout fell his system finally decide that it didn’t want to keep the autobot online anymore and started to power down. The yellow mech tried to stay awake but his systems shut down about a minute later. The darkness was surprisingly welcome.

.~,~.

Light slowly broke though the darkness as the mech’s optics slowly onlined. The midday sun shined down on the yellow plating and the autobot sat up slowly. Bumblebee looked around, wondering how he had gotten in the small field and why he was even online to begin with. He stood up from his place and looked down at himself. His plating was shining, as if it was washed.

His energy reserves were above the 83 % meaning that he had a good recharge. He checked his meter for energon to see how long he would be able to keep scouting when he noticed that that too had increased.

Bumblebee looked around confused, had everything just been some very fragged up dream? Or was the TIC of the decepticons really just toying with him? The scout shuddered and changed to his vehicle form. Time to get back to base and see if Ratchet can help him figure out just what is going on… that is if he can find a good way to start that conversation.

 

* * *

 

He knew that he shouldn’t do this. Laserbeak was supposed to scan for more energon, not follow the autobot scout around.

Soundwave stood by the monitors, working though the steady stream of date while he waited for Laserbeak to send any information or data of her observations.

When he had just returned to the Nemesis after his… moment with the scout he had retreated to his personal living quarters and spend some time thinking. While he tried to make sense of it all, his spark had been pulsing hard demanding of him to go look for the scout again. Soundwave felt betrayed by his own spark. Never before had his spark been acting up like this. Not even when he had been younger. Soundwave went over what had happened once more and he felt his spark demanding increase and his body heated up.

It took another day before he realized that he hadn’t even thought about hurting the scout. The con had been in the perfect position to neutralize an autobot and he hadn’t even thought about it. It confused Soundwave and if he hated one thing then it was being confused. It would have been logical to end the treat that the autobot had always been on the battlefield.

A memory of the scent and sight the scout had and had been entered his mind. The thought about having to terminate the scout suddenly didn’t seem doable anymore. Soundwave groaned and stared at his servos. What was wrong with him?

Soundwave put all the thoughts about the matter away and continued his work as chief of communication as normal. The vehicons were doing their normal job and Soundwave scanned though the minds of the other officers.

Starscream was planning. Black Arachnid was also planning. Breakdown was following Knock Out around and Knock Out himself was displeased because he needed to go on a relic hunt instead of having some quality time with his assistant. Nothing new.

Soundwave turned back to the minds of Knock Out and Breakdown. Curious he looked further into their relationship. It was no secret on the ship that those two had been more then just teammates. Breakdown’s every thought seemed to be centred around the doctor. Knock Out himself always had breakdown on the background in his thoughts.

Curious indeed.

Soundwave put the information in a file to look later in and turned his attention back to controlling the ship.

.~,~.

Soundwave was watching the fight for the relic. As expected the autobots had arrived to stop the decepticons of getting their servos on the relic. Soundwave had Laserbeak monitor the fight from high in the air. Laserbeak however, held the yellow scout always in sight. Soundwave may not know what was going on with himself but Laserbeak had a good idea of what it was and made sure to keep her master happy.

Knock Out was fighting against the blue and pink autobot femme and Breakdown was up against the green autobot. His scout seemed to by in charge of getting the relic and taking on any vehicon that was in the way. He managed to get to the spot with the relic without getting as much as a scratch on his armour. Soundwave couldn’t help but feel a a bit impressed and… proud?

His yellow mech stood by the relic and kept shooting any vehicon who came to close. A ground bridge appeared behind him and the scout left the battlefield with the relic. The other two autobots soon left though the ground bridge as well. The decepticons had lost this fight.

Megatron won’t be pleased with this report.

.~,~.

Soundwave was stressed.

He wasn’t how it was possible but his spark kept giving of signals and it was making his processor stress.

Soundwave didn’t get stressed. It was an unspoken rule on the ship. No amount of work could make the officer stress. Soundwave was always sure about himself, always knew what to do. It was the reason why he was still Megatron’s third in comment. One of the many reasons really. So why was he stressing now? He was not even sure. All he knew was that his spark was acting the same as when he had been in that forest. Now it was even worse. The demanding was stressing his processor out.

Megatron had noticed that Soundwave had become restless but hadn’t said anything about it. The leader knew that if it became to bad that Soundwave would solve it himself before it became a problem for the decepticons.

Starscream and Black Arachnid were uninterested in it. They just figured that Soundwave was finally going to crash.

Knock out had a more interesting theory. He seemed to be sure that Soundwave should go relax. Breakdown wasn’t sure and just listen to Knock Out talking.

“I am telling you Breaky~” the red doctor spoke as the two were in the medbay. “Soundwave is stressed because he hasn’t gotten a good frag in ages.” Breakdown felt unsure about that though “Why do you think he even needs that? I mean, we are talking about Soundwave here. he is more emotionless then any other con.” Knock Out had his trademark smug grin on his faceplates. “Because I know how mechs work Breaky~ every one of us needs a good fragging once in a while. Even a stick in the aft as Soundwave.”

Soundwave listened to the thoughts and conversation between the two. Maybe that would be something worth to look into later.

.~,~.

Soundwave sat in his own room working on one of his cassettes. Ravage had been damaged in a fight a few stellar cycles ago and he hadn’t gotten around to fix the damage yet. The spark in his cassette had been undamaged luckily. So it was just repairing the body.

Part of Soundwave’s mind was still on what Knock Out had said and he was curious. He logged himself in on the ship’s data-net and looked far any information that had to do with sparks and interfacing. He made sure to download it into a special map in his processor.

This process didn’t take as much as 1% of his processor busy so he didn’t have to worry about any complications while working on Ravage.

The repairs were going along nicely and Ravage had his own processor already partly online. Soundwave had one of his feelers in direct contact with the small cassette’s processor and used this connection to upload information into the other’s processor. Had his cassette been fully online then he could have send it telepathic. He could still do that now but it would be to much of a risk. The information would have been too much for the processor to handle. This way he could make the data flow slower and easier to work though.

The mini-con’s condition was easy to fix. Any medic could have done it but Soundwave hadn’t trusted any medic enough to get near his cassettes, which meant that Soundwave would have to do it himself later. Soundwave didn’t see this as a problem though, he would make sure that his cassettes would be fine. He had lost too many of them in the gladiator pits. He would make sure that the four he had left would make it though the rest of the war.

All the damage to the proto form had been repaired. Soundwave turned towards the armour and began the long job or straightening the bents out and welding the holes. Ravage slowly rose from his resting place and started to drink some of the energon that Soundwave had placed on the berth next to him.

Ravage lay back down after that and followed his master around with his optics. ‘ _Master? Where is Laserbeak?_ ’ Soundwave didn’t look up from the armour he was working on. “Laserbeak. Mission.” Laserbeak had left before Soundwave had started repairing Ravage. Soundwave had send Laserbeak out to scout again. Though not for energon but for a certain yellow scout. Laserbeak didn’t seem to have any problems with looking for and stalking the autobot, she didn’t even seem confused about the fact that Soundwave asked that of her. It was almost like she understood what Soundwave was going though, which confused Soundwave as he didn’t even understand it.

Soundwave worked on the armour in silence and put Ravage back in the armour. After he was sure that everything was working correctly he let ravage transform. Ravage transformed into cassette and transformed back again. Soundwave nodded “Transforming. Possible. Ravage, Free to roam the ship. Any problems? Contact me.” Ravage nodded and left the room so he could wander the ship.

Soundwave started to clean up the room and went to sit on his berth. Time to go though his downloaded information. Much of the information was about different interface methods and possibilities. Soundwave had a good idea whose fault that was. But for now he just read though everything that he could find, for once he was thankful towards the doctor with to much free time. He also found very useful information about the seals. Apparently the seal over the spike would be broken on his own if aroused enough, but the valve (or port) seal should be removed by a medic or the others partner. Doing it yourself would end up with a lot of pain and in some cases damage to the valve or port.

There was also a lot in the information about the so called ‘hotspots’ ever mech and femme had a series or hotspots which was standard in said mech’s or femme’s frame type. With grounders would the wheels be very sensitive towards touch and for seekers the wings. Soundwave saved this information and set on with his research. Then there were the possible personal hotspots. Not ever mech/femme had these but in some cases a cybertronian would have a random hotspot on their frame. This was possible because of the many different protoforms and the big amount of frame types.

Soundwave read though the information and the special video data that Knock Out had added to it. The decepticon spy also found some very useful information on the heat cycle, which his dear scout was going though. Information that Soundwave deemed useful would be saved while the rest would be put back in the original file.

Soundwave didn’t even stop to ask himself why he suddenly wanted to know this much about it.

.~,~.

Two earth ‘days’ past as Soundwave let Laserbeak follow the scout. Ravage stalked around the corridors in the ship to keep an eye on the vehicons and the other officers. This gave Soundwave a lot more free time to think the situation he was in though. He still wasn’t sure what was going on with himself, but he had given up on not spying on the autobot scout. Ravage hadn’t understood what had been wrong with his master but when Laserbeak had returned a while ago the two had spoken. And now whenever Soundwave was frustrated Ravage gave a smug grin as if he know something Soundwave didn’t. Had Ravage not been his cassette Soundwave would have already shown Ravage not to act like that towards his superior.

Now he was silently watching the scout though his cassettes optics. The scout was picking up one of those humans and would go relax with his fellow autobots and their human pets. Soundwave could sense the heated scent the scout had hanging around him. The other autobots didn’t seem be able to smell it which was just fine with Soundwave. Laserbeak had made a comment that the autobot had sensed good after her first day stalking. Soundwave had asked what she had meant with that and Laserbeak had just said that it just seemed right somehow. Soundwave had had some trouble to understand that.

Soundwave watched as the three autobots picked the humans up at the academic building the humans went to. The autobots left the city and made their way into the desert. Once there they let the humans out and spend time there.

Laserbeak watched as the breems past.

Breems turned into cycles.

Soundwave found it interesting that his yellow mech had could be so careful. The smallest of the humans sat close to the autobot and the scout was be able to play with the human’s remote controlled car without damaging the control or the car.

The sun began to set and another autobot joined the three. The mech had a racing car as alt mood and stopped close by the others. He transformed and started to talk to the scout who was still with the small human.

Soundwave suddenly felt the need to rip of the other autobots helm. Soundwave looked though his database and found the name of the bot that was suddenly in his death vision.

Smokescreen.

Soundwave watched as his scout interacted with this Smokescreen and suddenly had a clear moment in his processor. He wanted the scout for himself. He didn’t want any other mech or femme to be near the bot. He couldn’t stand the idea that the autobots could be near him and he couldn’t.

This information made the goal of watching into a goal of retrieving.

Soundwave knew that it would be difficult though. It would require careful planning. Soundwave knew that he would have to be careful with getting permission of Megatron and even more careful with the other officers. Difficult, but not impossible.

.~,~.

Soundwave was still working on a plan when Laserbeak messaged him that the autobot was on the move. Soundwave didn’t even need to give the order for Laserbeak to follow his scout. Laserbeak followed the scout to the mountain and stayed close. Close enough to keep a careful watch, but not close enough for the scout’s sensors to catch her.

Two days went by slowly. The scout moved around the mountain area and Laserbeak followed. Soundwave hadn’t formed a fail prove plan yet but he just couldn’t stand the pulling at his spark anymore. He needed to be close to his scout again. he moved though the Nemesis as a ghost and made his way to the flying deck. He transformed into his alt-mood and left the ship.

Once he got to the mountain he ordered Laserbeak to go scout for energon. Soundwave made sure to stay out of sight of the yellow autobot and noticed a cliff that would be perfect for his just thought of plan. He made his way towards the cave and send out a fake signal of energon. He made sure it was weak but strong enough for the scout to pick up, can’t have the other autobots or the Nemesis pick up the signal.

Soundwave saw the scout make his way towards the cave and hid away. With care he send out a signal that would break up any communication possibilities. The scout checked the rocky platform and the cave connected to it. after not finding anything he scanned the rock wand where Soundwave was hiding, but Soundwave already know that the readings would come up negative. The yellow scout moved towards the side of the platform and checked there. Soundwave jumped down from his spot and landed soundless on the platform. He pulled out a small block of energon and placed it on the platform. He hid under the platform and waited.

He heard the scout walk towards the energon crystal and made his way up to the platform again. The scout was scanning by the energon and was scanning it. Soundwave walked up to the scout and closed his arms around him. “ **What the pit!** ” Right, that translator would have to go. Soundwave moved his servos towards the yellow mech’s helm and slowly removed the translator there. Once it was off he let it fall to the ground. He let his servos trace over the bright yellow chest plates, slowly rubbing the light metal.

The autobot started to struggle but Soundwave would have none of that, he pulled the autobot closer and noticed that the yellow wings were quivering. Information about the seeker wings being sensitive entered his processor and he let one of his servos move up towards the wing and started to slowly pet and stroke it. The wing twisted under his small strokes and Soundwave smiled under his mask.

He was really starting to love heat cycles.

With one servo on the wing he let his other move towards the scarred throat. Once there he started to stroke it very lightly. Can’t have his autobot get hurt. He lightly stroked the fuel lines in by the scars and felt the energon in the lines rush though it.

The scout tried to move away again and Soundwave didn’t want the autobot to move to much. He called out his feelers and used them to pull the scout closer to him. Soundwave came to the pleased discovery that the heat the scout was emitting was very pleasant against his feelers.

Maybe his scout didn’t like the feeling of having a servo so close to his scars. That would be logical, the only memories the bot had from his neck was that of the pain of having his voicebox ripped out. Soundwave nodded to himself and let his left servo move back down towards the yellow chestplates. He used his right to map out the still quivering wing. Soundwave took noticed that the left wing was also quivering. He would have to see to that later.

Soundwave suddenly remembered one of the times he had seen Breakdown and Knock Out. Whenever breakdown would massage the doctor by his hips the red decepticon would almost melt in a willing mess. He knew that the scout was a combination of seeker and grounder coding. And the wings were as sensitive as any seeker wings would have been. Would his autobot also have the hotspots or grounders?

Soundwave moved the servo on the chest plates towards the hip plating and started to rub small circles there. The scouts whole body seemed the relax slightly and a purr sounded from the smaller mechs engine. The decepticon made sure to massage to spot with care before moving towards his goal. The moment he as much as touched the heated yellow pelvis the scout tried to move away. This meant walked into Soundwave and the con saw fine with that. He moved his feelers slightly and now the scout was pressed completely against the dark mech.

Soundwave slowly moved his servo back towards the heated pelvis. He made the some rubbing circles as he had on the hip plating before and the scout let out the most beautiful moan. Soundwave heard his own engine purr at the sound and pulled the moving scout close to his chest plates. He sped the rubbing circle up a little bit and the scout almost fell against him, letting out soft moans at the feeling.

Soundwave didn’t need his telepathy to know that the heat cycle had taken full effect on the scout. Soundwave picked the scout up and used one of his feelers to pick up the translator still on the floor. He wanted to make the smaller mech overload but not so in the open. That was just asking for problems.

Soundwave noticed that the mech was surprisingly light and pt this with the rest of the information he knew about his scout. He moved them back into the forest and only stopped once he couldn’t see the sky though the trees anymore. The scout in his arms was mewling at the strokes his feelers had been giving to both of the yellow wings. Soundwave sat on the ground and pulled the scout as close as possible. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to do now, he finally had his servos on the scout again…

Soundwave decided that he would use today for searching for as much hotspots as possible. The moment he decided that his feelers were already moving over the yellow frame, his servos began as soon as he was sure the scout wouldn’t fall over while he was exploring. The yellow frame heated up as the servos and feelers moved around. neither had any real moving plan. They reacted on the moans and purrs of the yellow mech and made sure to check certain spots again to see what were the real hotspots and what were just sensitive spots.

Soundwave stared at the bot as he moaned at his doings. The cons spark was pulsing hard as he watched and he felt his over pelvis heat up. But he ignored that in favour of watching the scout purr at his doings.

Soundwave thought for a while before nodding and taking his own visor off. He was pretty sure that the scout won’t randomly contact the autobot base now. Once the visor was off he placed it on the ground next to him and slowly let the scent and heat of the scout wash over his faceplates.

Blue grey optics started at the half closed with lust filled optics. That sight did it and Soundwave fell his pelvis open, spike hardened and already leaking lubricate. The heated mech purred and started to move the yellow servos down. Soundwave however wasn’t done yet. A feeler warped around the yellow servos and held them away from the darker mech’s pelvis. A small whining moan left the yellow mech, clearly not happy with being unable to touch.

Soundwave smiled and whispered “Relax, you just have to enjoy this.” It felt weird to talk without his visor but the caught mech seemed to like is as he shivered and purred. Soundwave looked at the condense on the yellow plating and thought for a while.

Whenever Starscream got into his heat cycle he would move into their leader’s berthroom. Not allowed out until the heat was over. Whenever the seeker was free again to roam the ship he would have some bite marks. He had heard Starscream complain ones to Knock Out that Megatron should stop trying to eat him whenever they were in the berth. Knock Out had just laughed it off and had said that there were worst things in the universe then have a berth partner that liked to taste him.

Soundwave looked at the plating and moved closer to it. He let his glossa move over the plating and purred at the taste. The metal was heated and was only just not burning his glossa but he didn’t mind that. The scout tasted just like his scent had smelled, and then even better. Soundwave wasn’t even sure how to know the taste as he let his glossa go over the plating. He reached one of the discovered hotspots and let his glossa dance over it.

The deep and hard moan was just plain wonderful to hear.

Even more wonderful then the moan had been the sound of the yellow pelvis snapping open. Soundwave fell the lubricate drip on his legs from the in heat mech. A whimper came from the bond mech as the air touched his equipment.

Soundwave moved the autobot so that he could taste the scarred neck and so that his own servo was by the dripping port. Time to get the scarred neck to feel some pleasure and to get a idea of what the port of his scout was like.

Soundwave licked and kissed the scarred neck gently and a small purr come from the smaller mech. The con let his digits move over the interface equipment. The deep purr was very motivating.

Soundwave moved the scout so that their spikes were next to one other. He took a gentle hold on both the spikes and let out a small moan himself. He slowly moved the servo up and down the two spikes. Both mechs let out moans and both engines purred. Soundwave fell as if he was going to lose it soon so slowly let his digit go in the leaking port. The scout above him let out a very pleased moan. Soundwave moved his servo up and down the two spikes a little faster and let his digit touch the inside walls of the very wet port.

The digit lightly touched a certain spot inside the yellow mech and the scout overloaded. The sudden rush of warmth and the extra wave of that perfect scent was enough to help the con over it as well.

After the overload was over Bumblebee snuggled closer to the still warm frame of the decepticon spy. Soundwave slowly laid on his back with the scout pulled as close as possible. After some moving he had the scout on his chestplates in a strong hold. He picked up his visor and put it back on before joining the scout in recharge.

.~,~.

When Soundwave wake up he had to reset his processor before believing that he had really done what he had done. Though once he got over the shock he couldn’t help but smile behind his visor. He looked down and saw that the scout was still laying in his arms. It felt so right to have him there.

He wanted to just pick up the scout. Call a ground bridge and take the scout home with him. but he hadn’t made sure that the scout wouldn’t get hurt on the ship yet. So he couldn’t risk it just yet. He looked down and scanned the scout in his arms. He was still in deep recharge and was on about 60% energy. Which meant that he would have a while before the scout would wake up. Enough time to clean himself and his scout up.

He rose from his resting place and took the scout with him to a small lake close by. Soundwave started to process of washing himself and cleaning the scout from any prove of their moment. No need for the autobots to find out just yet.

He was sure that the scout would want to tell his comrades. But if he had already told them then he had no doubt that they wouldn’t have allowed him out of the base without another autobot close. So as long as he was careful he wouldn’t give the autobots any hints. And hopefully his scout wouldn’t find a good moment to explain to the other autobots what happened.

The yellow plating shined in the sun and as Soundwave moved the scout somewhere where he was sure that no one would find him. He sat down with the scout and hold him closer for a little longer. He would need to leave soon so that the scout wouldn’t see and attack him but for now he could enjoy a little time with him. Soundwave scanned the scout again and found that he was on 64% but also noticed that his energon levels were low. Soundwave pulled out a small cube of energon and slowly gave it to the mech in his arms. The autobot managed to drink most of it before falling back into the deeper recharge. Soundwave finished the rest of the cube while he held the scout.

.~,~.

Time went by to fast.

Before he knew it the scout was at 78% and he had to leave. He put the scout on a save spot and disappeared out of the view of the scout but made sure he could still see him. after a short time the scout woke up and looked around confused. Soon the scout transformed and made his way back towards the autobot base.

Soundwave watched him go before going back to his own.


	3. Chapter 3

12 joors.

A heat cycle took up about 12 joors. Bumblebee was sure about that. He himself was on his 16th day of his heat cycle. Sadly a day was not the same as a joor. It took long to explain to the humans that cybertronians had a different time system. A breem could count as a minute but the two didn’t last as long as one other. A klik would be the same as a second but again won’t last the same time. 

The whole time different hadn’t been a real problem. But in this case the scout wasn’t sure how long his heat would last. He had tried to count the time. And with some patience he had figured out that one joor was about a day and about sixteen hours. So in earth time his heat lasted 20 days, take or give a few hours. 

This all meant he had four more days to survive. He could do that right? Four days in which he didn’t go out so that Soundwave couldn’t try to take advantage of his heat again. That couldn’t be too difficult.

… Right?

Bumblebee hoped so.

The yellow autobot looked around the base. Bulkhead was bringing the humans back to their own homes and Arcee was training with Smokescreen and Wheeljack. Optimus was still trying to decode the locations for the next relic and Ratchet was working in the medbay. 

Bumblebee let the air rush though his vents a little faster before raising and walking towards the medbay. Now was as good time as any another time to tell Ratchet what had happened. The scout just hoped that the chief of medical operations wouldn’t freak out to much on him.

Entering the medbay already felt like sealing his fate but the scout had been though worse, he could handle telling ratchet what had happened in his heat cycle… right? 

“Why have you come here? You need some repairs?” Bumblebee shot out of his thoughts and watched the back of the CMO before smiling behind his mask “ **Hey ratchet… I wanted to ask you a few things. If you have time of course** ” please don't have time. Please don't have time. Please don't have time-

“Of course kid. Just sit on the berth while I clean this up.” Ratchet didn’t turn around and Bumblebee walked towards the berth and jumped on it. 

Okay, so far so good.

“So what did you want me to ask?” Ratchet still had his back turned to the scout while he cleaned his tools. This made it both harder and easier for the scout. Easier because he wasn’t under the judging optics of the medic, harder because he couldn’t guess in what kind of mood the medic was.

Well, here goes nothing, as the humans would say it. “ **I was curious about… you know… heat cycles.** ” Ratchet just nodded as he waited. Bumblebee watched the medics back as he spoke “ **Is it possible for mechs or femmes to go crazy because of them?** ” Ratchet thought and shrugged “Not really, the heat cycles are there to show other mechs that a mech, or femme for that matter, is mature and healthy enough to support a sparkbond and a sparkling.” Bumblebee nodded “ **So… you can’t go crazy thanks to it? Not like… the scent is to much or the signal frags something up?** ” Ratchet looked over his shoulder confused “You mean for the one not in heat?” Bumblebee nodded and was biting his derma under his mask as the medic thought “I have never heard of a case were a mech or femme went crazy because of a scent. Neither with the seekers.” Bumblebee nodded.

Ratchet was back to cleaning his tools while the two sat in silence. Bumblebee looked down at his servos as he tried to decide how to start explain what had happened. “ **How come that the whole scent and signal is so different with mixed coding like mine?** ” Ratchet thought the question over “I am not sure. It is one of those things that we aren’t sure about. Maybe it is because the scent and signal is given over in the coding. So if comes from a grounder and a flyer the coding isn’t in complete sync and so can’t choice a real side who it wants to attract.” Bumblebee nodded in understanding.

Ratchet couldn’t help but tease the young mech a bit “What is wrong kid? You have been though the heat cycle before, why the sudden questions?” the silence wasn’t something the medic expected, the silence was long and uncertain, that kind that cut though the air. Ratchet turned around and was shocked. 

Bumblebee just sat on the berth looking down at his servos and his wings were quivering with stress and uncertainty. Ratchet realized that something was seriously wrong with the scout and walked over to him and sat on a crate next to the berth “What is wrong Bee? What happened?” The scout was still looking at his servos as he spoke “ **I… my… my heat cycle started up a while ago… and something happened… something I am not sure how or why it happened… and I am not sure what to do…** ” Ratchet nodded “Tell me Bumblebee. I am sure there is a way to solve it.”

Bumblebee looked up at Ratchet and nodded “ **Well, I-** ” at the moment Arcee walked in “Ratchet, Wheeljack and Smokescreen took their sparring too far again and- Is this a bad time?” Arcee looked unsure as Ratchet sighed “Bring those two idiots in and put them on a berth. Bumblebee, we will continue this conversation once I am done repairing those two okay?” Bumblebee nodded, sure he still hadn’t told what happened but at least Ratchet would listen the moment he was done repairing their teammates. 

Arcee looked at the scout. “Smokescreen was supposed to join me on the scouting mission, but now he can’t. Would you mind going with me bee?” Bumblebee shook his helm “ **I don't mind** ” and the two left the base. After all, Soundwave wouldn’t try anything with another bot close by right?

.~,~.

The scouting was nice, no signals just Arcee and Bumblebee racing. The femme had of course asked why he had been in the medbay but Bumblebee explained that he had entered his heat cycle and that it was really straining his systems, Arcee nodded and told him that he could not over do it and to get to Ratchet the moment they were back in the base. After that the two drove in silence when the got to the cliffs and took their time walking though them, no real hurry.

“Smokescreen is getting better at sparring, but he is still too arrogant for his own good! Wheeljack keeps getting mad and then the two end up in a real fight! I swear if this keeps going I am going to give up on it!” Bumblebee laughed “ **They can’t be that bad. And you have had worse mechs to teach, remember when you were helping Blurr?** ” Arcee groaned “Do I remember him? How could I forget! He talked faster and more then even Bluestreak did!” Bumblebee petted the femme on the shoulder as Arcee smiled “Luckily there were also mechs who did listen to me.” The femme smiled at Bumblebee as the scout smiled “ **Thanks Arcee~** ” the blue and pink femme smiled “It is true! You were the only one who took the training serious enough!” the two laughed as they walked around.

The sun was at it’s highest point when the two took a break. They were talking about how the time had been on the Ark and how much had changed after they arrived on earth. The peace was a welcome change for the two friends. 

The silence was broken by the comm.. link :: Base to Bumblebee and Arcee, come in:: Arcee sighed and answered ::Arcee and Bumblebee to base, we haven’t found anything yet:: 

::We have picked up a signal close by the two of you, you may want to check it out.:: 

The two scouting bots looked at one other and set of towards the signal. Once they arrived they saw nothing. “Well, that was a waste of time.” Bumblebee couldn’t help but agree with the femme. 

The two walked for a while longer when Bumblebee noticed that his systems were heating up thanks to his heat and the sun. The scout tried to not focus on it but it seemed like the femme noticed the increasing heat coming from the scout. 

Enough was enough

“Go cool yourself of Bee!” The femme pushed the yellow mech towards a small river. “ **What? Arcee! Come on! I am fine.** ” Arcee almost growled “I don't care, you are over heating and you are cooling yourself of! Now!” At the the femme pushed the mech into the river.

The yellow mech stared in shock up at the femme who smiled at him “Get your temperature down. I will a little farther along.” The femme nodded towards the farther away lying cliffs “Take your time~” the femme transformed and sped off.

The scout sat in the cool water for a little longer in shock before going to wash his heated armour. It helped and his temperature started to go down again.

After a some time the scout got out of the water and started to make his way towards his teammate. He turned a corner and the next thing he noticed were two feelers warped around him “ **Ar-!** ” and a servo snatched away his translator. Bumblebee tried to fight his way out of the feelers but two arms with two wandering servos joined them. The autobot didn’t give up though, he tried to fight his way out of the arms but it didn’t help much.

Luck was on his side though, well partly, as his heat cycle was very low. It would take a long time before his heat cycle would kick in again this would give him hopefully enough time to fight his way out of this. 

Well, he hoped he could.

The con wouldn’t let him go easily thought, but the scout wasn’t going to give up that easily. He fought and tried to break away from the grip and somehow the two tripped. When they tripped, Soundwave let go of the Autobot for a moment and Bumblebee manages to break free. He tried to stand up and make a run for it when two feelers caught his legs. The ground wasn’t painful but it did stun Bumblebee for a little moment.

Long enough for the con to get back on him, he was turned on his back and he glared up at the dark silent decepticon. The con had his body sitting on his legs. One of those fragging feelers had his servos and arms bond while the other had his pedes. 

He was stuck.

Soundwave stared down at the captured Bee as the scout glared at the cassette master. Bee pulled at his bond servos but they didn’t give any room as Soundwave lazily took the sight before him in. 

Two servos started to make their way across the plating. Bumblebee tried to move away but it seemed to have no effect.

The servos made their way towards his pelvis as Bumblebee tried to move away. 

A laser shot flow just past Soundwave’s helm.

The con looked away from his prey and saw a seriously fragged off femme standing by the cliff side. By the looks of it, she had stopped the moment she had turned around the side. Most likely taken her blaster out to shoot the moment she saw the con on her friend.

.~,~.

Arcee took in the rock formation before her. She had been waiting by the cliff side while Bee had been in the river. ‘Poor Bee’ the femme thought ‘Heat cycles are the worst. And then he doesn’t even have someone to help him with it… mmmh maybe I can talk him into letting anyone help him… that should help.’ The femme turned towards the cliffs where the yellow scout was behind. She had pushed him into that river so that he could cool down. She really hoped it was helping.

Arcee made sure to keep her comm. link open with the scout as she waited. So when the line locked up she was confused. ::Hello? Bumblebee come in::. There was no reply and the motor started to think. There were really two options. One, something had happened, most likely bad. Or two, Bumblebee had decided to take care of his heat on his own.

The femme weighted the two options off. Sure, walking in on seeing him do that with himself would be awkward, but if something bad had happened she should be there to help him.

Decision made the femme set off towards the place she had last seen the scout, maybe if he was really just helping himself she could sneak off again before the Bee saw her.

The blue autobot made her way towards the cliff and made sure to stay quiet. She didn’t hear anything. She turned the corner and froze in her steps.

Bumblebee was on the ground tied down by the feelers of Soundwave. He was fighting but wasn’t be able to knock the con off of him. The silent con had his servos running all over the yellow bot’s chestplates.

Soundwave was touching Bee…

Soundwave was sitting on Bee, servos moving towards the yellow pelvis.

Soundwave was… Soundwave IS trying to force Bee while he is in his heat!

The moment it clicked inside the femme’s processor, she transformed both her servos into her blasters and shot at the con. The shot missed but the con looked up at the autobot femme. Angry rushed though the femme’s body as she glared at the con, How did he DARE to try to force interface with her friend?!

“Get off of him. Now!” Arcee growled as she looked at her friend. Bee looked up at her with a look of relieve. It seemed like the con had dislocated the translator. The con however didn’t seem impressed with the femme and sat up just a bit straighter. Bumblebee tried to pull his arms free while the con was distracted. The feeler warped tighter around the two limps and the scout was stuck again.

Arcee took another step forwards, blasters pointed straight at the con “Let him go right now con.” Soundwave stared at the femme before moving one of his legs between the scout’s legs. One servo moved towards one of the yellow wings and stroked it. The yellow bot let out a disagreeing noise and tried to move away.

The autobot femme glared at the con with pure murder “You sick fragger! Get off of him right now!” the femme shot again but the con dodged the shot by pressing completely on the scout beneath him. Arcee took another few steps forwards when she heard growling on the side. Suddenly a thing that looked like a cyber cat walked out from behind a rock formation. The cyber cat walked straight towards the femme and stood protective between Soundwave and Arcee. 

The two autobots stared in shock at the new arrival. Soundwave nodded at the cyber cat and turned back towards the yellow autobot. Arcee looked at Bee and saw the scout still looking at his friend asking, no begging, for help. Arcee smiled at the scout “Don't worry Bee! I will get you out.” She glared at the cyber cat “I will get you out…” and took aim to shoot.

Bumblebee could just see the femme fight with the cyber cat. He tried to move away again and let out a weak whimper when the servo brushed his pelvis. His optics shot back towards the visor covered face with poorly hidden fear. The silent mech stopped and stared at the autobot beneath him. One servo rose towards the muted face and slowly stroked it. The autobot turned his face as much away as possible and closed his optics. 

Arcee dodged another attack from the cyber cat and saw that Soundwave was distracted, she took aim and fired. The shot hit the shoulder of the con and Soundwave grabbed his shoulder. Bumblebee noticed he had more room to move and used that. He managed to free one arm and tried to twist himself free. The con suddenly rose and the cyber cat hissed at the femme before sprinting towards the con. Bumblebee moved backwards and away from the con. Arcee took her position between her friend and the con with his cyber cat.

Soundwave had a hold on his shoulder but kept staring at the scout, the silence stretched on before on a groundbridge appeared, the spy master and cyber cat left though it.

The moment the ground bride disappeared Arcee run towards Bumblebee and hugged him closely “It is okay Bee, you are fine… You are fine…” the femme couldn’t believe how close that had been, what if she hadn’t gone to check on her friend? She couldn’t help but tighten her grip. No, she won’t let anything happen to her friend. 

::Arcee to base! Come in base! I request a groundbridge right NOW!:: Arcee looked around and found Bumblebee’s translator on the ground and picked it up. :: Base to Arcee, groundbridge on the way.:: Arcee send though her thanks and moved to help Bee up. The scout moved up and had a tight grip on his translator. 

Arcee smiled “Come Bee, let’s get away from here” on that moment, the groundbridge appeared. Arcee took a good grip on the yellow servo and walked towards the bridge, still holding one blaster out just in case.

The moment the two got though the groundbridge the femme snapped at Bulkhead, who stood by the controls, “Close it!” Bulkhead nodded in surprise and shock before closing the groundbridge. Arcee pulled bumblebee with her towards the medbay. “Ratchet! Help now!” 

.~,~.

“Ratchet! Help now!” Ratchet looked up from the monitors he was working on and walked towards the door of his office/medbay. 

Ratchet opened his door and saw a very distressed Bumblebee and a furious but worried Arcee. Ratchet opened his door to let the two in. Bumblebee sat down on the berth and stared at his translator in his servos. Ratchet looked at the furious femme as she stalked from one side of the room though the other. 

Ratchet looked at the femme “What the frag happened?” Arcee glared at Ratchet “Soundwave! Soundwave happened!” Ratchet looked from femme to mech as he had the dreadful feeling of where this was going “Arcee?” Arcee let her optics turn away before hugging Bumblebee again “That fragger thought that he could just force himself unto Bee while he was in his heat! Those sick cons! How does he even DARE to think about that.” Ratchet stared in shock and muttered “By the all spark…” before moving towards Bumblebee and started to check him over, a heavy feeling in his spark.

_~“ **I… my… my heat cycle started up a while ago… and something happened… something I am not sure how or why it happened… and I am not sure what to do…** ” _

_“Tell me Bumblebee. I am sure there is a way to solve it.”_

_“ **Well, I-** ”~_

It couldn’t be… be that… right?

Ratchet took a close look at the yellow bot’s wings. The wings always told a big story and now they were clearly shamed and stressed, this wasn’t good. “Arcee?” the femme stopped her ranting and turned towards the war medic “Please leave for now.” Arcee was about to go against it but Ratchet just gave her a look “Please Arcee, just for now.” the femme sighed and left the medbay.

“Kid?” Bumblebee ignored the medic as he stroked the metal of his translator, too ashamed to look up. “Bumblebee, I am going to ask you a few questions okay? You can just answer them by nodding.” Bumblebee gave a short nod and Ratchet took this as positive. 

Ratchet looked at the young scout and knew that he had to go though this carefully. 

“Could you tell me how long you have been in heat?” a silence filled the air before Bumblebee nodded and he lifted two digits. Ratchet nodded “So, two joors?” a shake of the helm disagreed. “Two earth days?” another shake of the helm was the answer. Ratchet thought for a while and he really started to worry “Longer?” a nod was the answer. Ratchet went over the possible meanings before asking again “Two weeks?” Bumblebee nodded.

Ratchet went over the normal development of heat cycles and looked at Bumblebee “Bumblebee… was… was this… the first time Soundwave…” a shake was all the medic needed to know. “That piece of scrap!” Bumblebee flinched away from the sudden loud noise and looked up at the medic in worry. Ratchet saw Bumblebee look and tried to smile at the scout but it didn’t look honest “I am not mad at you Bee, Why should I? Everyone knows what a heat cycles does to one’s processor. I can’t believe the cons could sink that low…” 

Ratchet sighed and walked over to the scout “I know that you are not going to like this… but you will have to tell me what happened… as much as you can remember… to both me and Optimus.” Bumblebee looked at his mask before putting it on “ **I know…** ”

.~,~.

So said. So done.

Ratchet called Optimus into the medbay and Bumblebee started the long shameful story of what he knew had happened. Neither of the two older bots interrupted the scout’s story and both listened without questions. When Bumblebee explained what had happened when he had been in the mountains both Ratchet and Optimus fell a bit uneasy. 

Soundwave had taken his time to do that, he had planned and had set up a plan to lure the youngest autobot to that cave. 

Bumblebee finished his story and, once again, looked down at his servos. Wings hanging low because of the shame and filled with stress.

Optimus looked at the young autobot before speaking “Well, I think that the wisest thing is to keep Bumblebee off missions until the last of his heat has pasted.” Ratchet nodded “I agree with that Optimus. His heat should only take a few more days but I would prefer to keep Bee off of missions for a full week, just to be sure that the scent is completely done.” Optimus nodded and watched as Bumblebee took this information in “ **And… and after that sir?** ” Optimus smiled at the nerves scout “We will think about that later. You should go rest in your room and try to get some recharge. Enough has already happened too you.” Bumblebee nodded, wings not as low anymore as he jumped from the berth, he said goodbye and went to his room.

Ratchet looked at his leader “What do you think of this Optimus?” the autobot leader thought before sighing “I think, my old friend, that this is a lot more complicated then Bumblebee is aware of.”

-  
-

Soundwave exited the bridge and went straight towards his own room. His EM-field was enough to keep anyone from asking questions or daring to come near the TIC. Said TIC locked his door behind himself and glared at the floor though his visor. 

He just wanted one more moment with his scout before the heat ended. Just one more moment. Then he would concentrate on getting his scout here with him. But that femme just had to ruin it. 

_Two blue optics. Staring up at him in fear._

Soundwave stared at his servos. He couldn’t get those two scared optics out of his mind. He didn’t get it… he hadn’t hurt his scout at all… he wasn’t going to hurt him, his scout would have felt amazing, he would have made sure of it.

So why had the autobot looked so afraid. 

He slowly went over it again. 

He had been able to caught Bumblebee but his scout had been able to break free. He hadn’t thought and had reacted on instinct. He had been able to caught his scout again but had made the scout hit his helm against the ground. He had made sure he hadn’t been hurt thought. Of course he made sure of that! 

Then that femme had come. The femme had distracted him. Luckily Ravage had been willing to keep the femme busy. He had turned back to his scout.

Those fearful blue optics had stared up at him.

Soundwave ripped his visor off in the hopes of getting that vision away from him. But it didn’t help at all. Those blue optics, demanding to know why he was doing that to him, demanding to know why Soundwave was scaring him like that.

It bothered Soundwave… It bothered him that it was bothering like this in the first place!

“ _It is because you want him to want you like you want him_ ” Soundwave didn’t need to turn to know that Ravage was in the room, keeping his optics focused on the spy master “Why… why do I want him so much?” Ravage thought before answering “ _Not sure. But my guess is because he is the only one who gave you some form of true affection, sure it was in his heat cycle but that is beside the point. You are not used to it, and when you finally have it you don't want to give up on it._ ” Soundwave didn’t look up “Why from him?” Ravage shrugged “ _Don't know boss. My guess is that your spark just fixed in on him and doesn’t want to let him go. But my guess is as good as any._ ”

Soundwave looked at his servos, “And what do you and Laserbeak think about that?” Soundwave didn’t need to look at the cyber cat to know the answer, didn’t even need to hear it because he could feel it coming from his cassette. 

The acceptation. 

Ravage purred before answering “ _You already know that boss, but just to be clear. Laserbeak would agree with me on this one. We both think that you deserve some kind of happiness after all the slag you have been though. And so what that that comes in the form of an autobot. We don't follow any side in this war. We follow you._ ” Soundwave let a small smile appear “Then I guess we will have to start planning as to how to get Bumblebee here with me.” Ravage thought when a new thought joined the two “ _Well, you really have two options sir. One, get the autobot to join the decepticons, or kidnap the autobot and keep him at your side until we win the war._ ” Laserbeak told them over the mental link between the cassette master and his cassettes.

Soundwave nodded “That would mean that the other officers would have to let him stay here though… and to leave him to me only.” Thoughts of the other officers near his scout made the spymaster uneasy. No way was he letting anyone near his scout. 

Then was the question as to how they were going to do this. Soundwave couldn’t just walk up to Megatron and demand to have the scout for himself. no that wouldn’t look good and may look like treason. “ _Sir… I may have an idea as to how this could work._ ” Soundwave and Ravage looked each other before Soundwave answered the female cassette “I am listening Laserbeak.”

.~,~.

Soundwave knew that fear was a powerful emotion, to use against others that is. He had never thought however that it was so easy to make the others truly fear him this much. He knew that most feared him but never saw him as a real danger as long as they followed their lord. But now…

When Laserbeak had said that he would have to act more creepy Soundwave had been confused. There was no need to do that but Laserbeak had said that he just needed to make sure that everyone knew that Soundwave was always watching. And when she said always, she meant always.

The first few times that Soundwave started to replay unneeded parts of private conversations everyone had just found it a bit annoying but nothing more. When it become the even more private and secret conversations that Soundwave would reply with the mechs and femme on the ship became more worried.

The time that Soundwave replayed a sound recording of the doctor’s and his assistant’s interfacing turned out to be the prove for what everyone had been afraid of. Soundwave was truly always watching and listening.

It scared the decepticons. Only now they seemed to realize how much Soundwave must know. How easily he could destroy any of them. One wrong word and the TIC could make you disappear. Have all the information on who you are and what yo did changed into something else. And no one would know.

Knock Out was one of the mechs who was very displeased “I am telling you Breaky! He needs a hobby! And another then creeping the whole ship out!” Breakdown nooded and looked around him nerves.

The medbay had always been their place, their room to do and say what they wanted. Now it felt like he was being watched which was just the problem!

Breakdown looked at the red con “Can’t you get Starscream to talk to lord Megatron about it? I mean, our lord must have noticed and seen the problem in this by now.” Knock out sighed “Starscream said he was going to talk to him, even if he had to hold out on interface.” Breakdown covered his face. One of the things he never got over was just how easily both Starscream and Knock Out were with interfacing. He had once walked in on the two discussing different tactics to ride a cable. Really not something he wished to repeat.

Had Soundwave also heard that? Oow primus this was really weird.

Soundwave grinned at the running and worrying thoughts before skipping though the other heads. Breakdown was right though, he had in matter of fact heard that conversation, and if he was honest with himself, and he would never say it out loud, he had saved that information for a possible later use.

But back to business. Soundwave skipped though the processors before finding Starscream and Soundwave started to listen.

Starscream’s thoughts were all about how he was going to make Megatron do something against Soundwave. He was really fragged off at him because he had the idea that Soundwave had been analysing his wings, which was partly right but Starscream didn’t need to know that.

Starscream entered the throne room and walked straight up towards the decepticon lord. “Do something about Soundwave!” well, that wasn’t the way Soundwave thought the seeker would go about it, but whatever worked.

“Starscream, what is your reason for walking in like this?” Starscream glared before starting his rant about the disrespectful way Soundwave had been and how he should be taken care off because the crew was starting to get distracted and he didn’t want that weird creepy mech around anymore.

Soundwave had to admit that it was an interesting rant. 

“And what are you suggesting I do?” the seeker glared as he thought “I don't know! You are the leader! Maybe you should think of something so that your ARMY isn’t feeling like your third in comment will appear next to their berth and stare at them!”

Okay, that was insulting.

Megatron just stared at his SIC before sighing “I will see what I can do, now leave so I can get some work done!” Starscream smirked and left the room his thoughts already thinking about how he was going to reward his lord if he really solved the problem with Soundwave.

Ravage looked up from his cleaning “ _And?_ ” Soundwave nodded “Starscream finally told lord Megatron to do something about my behaviour.” A soft female voice joined them “ _Told you that this would work._ ” Soundwave nodded “You were correct Laserbeak. Now we wait until-”

:: Soundwave, come to the throne room.::

Soundwave smirked “I guess our lord really wants to get this over with.” Soundwave put his visor back on before leaving the room. Making sure to walk past as many vehicons and officers as possible while making it clear that he saw whatever they were doing.

Soundwave entered the throne room and stopped before Megatron. The TIC bowed for his leader and waited for the decepticon to speak.

 

“Soundwave, I have noticed that you have been… restless the last few weeks. And while at first it wasn’t bothering with your duties. Now it seems that the vehicons and other officers have taken problems with it.” Megatron was stating it as a fact but Soundwave noticed that the leader was taken care not to say anything to negative, unlike the SIC.

Soundwave thought before replying with one of the conversations he had heard over the ship “What right does Soundwave have to act like this!” Soundwave waited for a reply from Megatron.

Megatron nodded “The other officers seemed to agree that you need… some distraction.” Soundwave replied with his recorded conversation from the good doctor “He needs a hobby! And another then creeping the whole ship out!” Megatron nodded “Correct-” Soundwave went for the kill and replied another conversation of the doctor “I am telling you Breaky~ Soundwave is stressed because he hasn’t gotten a good frag in ages.”.

Megatron groaned and Soundwave quickly concentrated on the ex-gladiators thoughts. ‘Of course Knock Out would have been talking like that about Soundwave. Why am I not surprised. Maybe this is still saveable.’. ooow. That was interesting. Megatron thought that Soundwave’s line had been crossed because of the slight disrespect he got. 

‘Though… maybe if Soundwave just has someone to do to keep him busy he may also relax a bit more…’ That was more like it. Soundwave waited for his lord to give the offer.

Megatron stood up straighter and stared at Soundwave, acting like he was still thinking about a way to solve it “Maybe, Knock Out has a point. He is a medic after all. Maybe getting a plaything will give you more time for yourself.” The thought that came after it was way more amusing ‘And maybe keep you off our backs and out of our own interfacing for a while.’ It seemed like even his lord didn’t like the fact that he was watched, though that was to be expected.

Soundwave let a question mark appear on his screen. Megatron nodded “Take a joor to think of who you would like as plaything.” And he was dismissed.

Soundwave left the throne room and smirked behind his mask. This had been a lot easier then he would have thought.

.~,~.

A joor later he went to the bridge and asked if he could choice whoever he wanted as his plaything, Megatron agreed to that and Soundwave asked if he could keep the yellow autobot. Megatron was a bit confused but he guessed that Soundwave was just interested in a grounder with door wings and gave his go ahead.

The news that Soundwave was getting a plaything spread though the ship and everyone just seemed to be relieved that Soundwave was going to get something else to do instead of stalking the crew.

Soundwave himself was very pleased with how it had ended, now it was just waiting for the right moment to swoop his scout of the battlefield and keep him for himself.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look at that! a short chapter.  
> sorry for that.  
> I would have liked it to be longer... but i just found this a good end for the chapter. or it seemed to forced...  
> so.... deal with it?
> 
> Btw. thank you all for over 1000 hits :D

The blue with pink femme left the medbay and walked straight to the training room. She needed to blow off some negative energy. 

That is how she ended up in a mostly destroyed training room. Arcee took a deep breath before moving into a new set of attacks. She was of course aware of the deep green autobot watching her confused but she honestly didn’t care at the moment. She was furious.

So when Smokescreen joined Bulkhead the racer was confused to see a furious femme “yo Bulkhead, What happened to Arcee?” Bulkhead shrugged “I am not really sure… She and Bumblebee returned from their patrol. They went to the medbay and later Arcee was kicked out by Ratchet. She immediately went here.” the less experienced of the two nodded. “She looks mad…” Bulkhead nodded “She looks furious… the kids got home savely?” Smokescreen nodded “No biggy.”

Arcee tried to ignore the two talking bots. But it wasn’t easy, she was stressed and just burning with anger. 

The two finally shut up when the doors of the medbay opened. All three turned and saw the scout make his way to his room. the door of the scout’s room closed behind him.

Arcee was already moving towards it and was about to knock on the door.

“I will have to ask you not to do that just yet Arcee.” The femme turned and stared at her leader “But Optimus I-” Optimus raised his hand to stop Arcee. “Ratchet wishes to talk with you about what you saw to make some more sense in this all.” Arcee looked ready to go against it but Optimus spoke again “That is right now the best way to help Bumblebee.” Arcee stared before nodded “Yes sir” and the femme made her way towards the medbay.

Optimus turned to look at the two very confused autobots “Optimus? What is going on?” Bulkhead was the one to ask as he looked worried from the medbay towards Bumblebee’s room. Optimus thought before answering “We are not sure at the moment Bulkhead. But I will have to ask you two to stay clear of Bumblebee for a while. His heat cycle has started a while again and being around other mechs and femmes will only make that harder for him.”

The two looked even more confused before bulkhead understood “Because of his mixed coding?” Optimus nodded and gave a correct before moving back to the monitors.

Smokescreen looked at bulkhead “So… Bumblebee was in the medbay because of his mixed coding and Arcee is furious… because of something…” Bulkhead shrugged “I guess so…” smokescreen looked at the medbay before grinning “Let’s just ask when Ratchet is done with his questions!” Bulkhead was about to say that that was a horrible idea when Arcee left the medbay.

She looked even madder then before and went straight to the training room where she started to train again. 

Smokescreen smiled as he walked towards the training room. Bulkhead run after Smokescreen but walked into a pile with boxes and wasn’t be able to stop the rookie. The rookie smiled as he entered.

Arcee didn’t look up from her target. Though she wasn’t really seeing her target, all she could picture was that blasted con. Ooow, how she wanted to just go up to the Nemesis and shoot some cons. But seeing that Ratchet had told her that is was for the best for them to lay low, she was here instead, attacking unmoving targets. 

She heard footsteps come closer but she didn’t turn. Right now she just needed to keep her mind away from what had happened… just long enough for herself to calm down so she won’t go on some-

“So… why are you so mad?” It was always Smokescreen, who asked the wrong questions at the wrong time. Arcee decided against answering, more for the rookie’s sake then her own. “I mean… What did Bee do on patrol to make you so angry-”

That did it. “Bee?! Bee didn’t do ANYTHING! It are the cons that I am angry about! And you want to know why I am mad?! YOU really want to know that?!” Smokescreen stood frozen on the ground as Arcee screamed. “Soundwave! Soundwave who is what is fragging wrong!” Arcee growled and shot at the target again “That fragging con thought that he could just use Bee! The FRAGGER thought he could just force himself on bee while he is in his heat! AND now I am here! instead of hunting that fragger down because Ratchet thinks it is better that we stay low for a while! SO that is why I am mad!” 

Smokescreen stared at the furious femme in shock when a other voice broke the silence “That con tried to do… that to Bumblebee?” the two turned and saw a shocked Bulkhead. Arcee hadn’t noticed the green autobot and said autobot had heard everything. Bulkhead looked with shock at the small femme, Arcee nodded “If I hadn’t been there Soundwave would have…” Arcee let’s out an angry scream and kicks the target once more.

“You want to hear the worst thing about it all? That somehow Soundwave WAS be able to pick up on Bee’s heat to begin with! While no grounder or flyer can! Only with mixed coding can but everyone knows that Soundwave is a freaking seeker! Frag him!” the two mechs stood in shock as they worked though the information they had just been given. Before they could give their own opinion their Prime walked in and asked them to follow with him to talk with Ratchet.

.~,~.

They got the orders to give Bumblebee the time to ride the last of his heat out. So they needed to keep themselves busy.

Arcee, Bulkhead and Smokescreen ended up in the training room again. Though they were cleaning it up together now, order from the medic of the group to keep them busy.

Smokescreen watched the green mech move the stuff of the room around while the femme glared at the wall. 

A silence hang in the air when they heard the door into the base open. “Hello! Did I miss anything?!” Bulkhead looked up and grinned “Hey Jackie!”

Bulkhead left the training area to talk to his old wrecker buddy while Arcee and Smokescreen stayed in the room. Wondering what they should do and how they should tell Wheeljack what had happened… and if they needed to tell him. Arcee sighed “I will have to ask Prime what we need to tell Wheeljack-”

“The cons tried to do what to Bumblebee?! He is still a kid! Those fragging cons! When I get my servos on them I will make them regret ever thinking about trying to force themselves on a bot!”

Arcee groaned and felt like facepalming, Trust Bulkhead to just go up to his friend and tell him.

.~,~.

He should decorate his room. Bumblebee let his optics trace over the empty walls and felt that thought come up again. He had been stuck in his room for five days now, on doctor’s orders, and while it helped him with his heat it was slowly dying of boredom. But it was better to stay here then go out though. He still needed his energon and luckily Ratchet brought that to him. 

Bumblebee felt the tension in the air around the base since he came back. It didn’t take a genius to guess why that was the case. 

The explosion that echoed though the base had the scout shoot up and looked at the door in shock. What was going on? Were they being attacked?

“Wheeljack! What did I say about explosions inside the base?!” That was Ratchet. So Wheeljack played with explosives inside his room… There were worst things. The scout laid back on his back and tried to relax again. His heat hadn’t given any problems the last few days so that was the bright side of it all.

“What about staying quiet so Bee can rest don't you understand?!” Bumblebee groaned as he rolled unto his side. Sure he had had some very weird and awkward run in with Soundwave, also terrifying but he won’t let them know that, but they were acting like how they acted with Tyger Pax. Without notice, he raised his servo up to his throat and stroked the scars there. 

Why had this all happened? How had Soundwave been able to locate him? He could guess how though. It was Soundwave after all, the third in comment of the decepticons, the communication officer. That however raised a new question, Why had Soundwave let him live? Why hadn’t Soundwave just offlined him? It would have been easy. The scout couldn’t think of any reason for the con to have kept him online. And any reason that he thought of wasn’t comforting. He didn’t like how his processor was warning him that he had only survived it because he had been in heat. The scent may have had some effect on the con. Maybe the con thought to keep him as some interface toy- NO!

Bumblebee shook his helm and put his faceplates into his servos, cycling air though his vents while trying to stay calm. No, he won’t allow his processor to go down that path and tried to look for some different reason. Sadly he couldn’t come up with everything. Though a very small part kept saying that he was missing something very obvious. The scout turned on his side and stared at the wall and offlined his optics. Maybe some recharge would do him good.

.~,~.

Soft knocking woke the scout up from his recharge. The yellow mech looked around his room before turning towards the door. Another soft knock was heard “Bee? Can I come in?” Bumblebee unlocked the door at the sound of Arcee’s voice. Arcee entered the room and closed the door behind her. “Hey… I… I wanted to talk…” Bumblebee nodded and looked around his room in search for his translator. 

Arcee joined the scout on the berth as Bumblebee put on his mouth guard. Arcee looked at her servos and smiled at the scout “You feeling better? doing okay with the whole heat thing?” Bumblebee grinned behind his mask “ **I am fine, still a little overheated sometimes but nothing problematic. It isn’t my first heat so I know what to expect.** ” Arcee smiled and hugged the younger mech “Cee?” the femme was slightly shaking as she held the younger mech “I should have noticed… I should have noticed that you had entered your heat… and then Ratchet explains that… that… sick fragger… that he had been…” her optics looked straight at the shocked blue eyes of the scout “Why didn’t you tell us the moment it happened?” Bumblebee looked at his servos and looked at the femme “ **I tried… of course… I just wasn’t sure how to explain that I wake up, after a moment what was supposed to be ‘me time’, on top of a decepticon. And to make things worse on top of Soundwave. I didn’t even remember what had happened or why it happened… I wasn’t even sure how to start explaining that…** ” 

The femme nodded and hugged the yellow mech. “Just know… that you can always talk to me… We have known each other for so long. You have always helped my Bee, with Tailgate and with Cliffjumper. I promise I will always help you Bee, don't ever doubt that.” Bumblebee hugged the femme and nodded “ **I know Cee. You are my best friend and nothing will ever change that.** ” Arcee nodded and hugged her friend.

.~,~.

Later, Arcee was kicked out by the mad medic when he came to bring the scout his energon. The scout spent the rest of his isolation time in peace. Once he was friend he spend most of his time inside the base. Optimus still felt uneasy about letting the scout go out on his own and Ratchet was backing him up on it. 

Another week went by and the level of tension around the base finally seemed to go down. That helped the scout a lot. His heat had gone by and that brought a certain rest around the base. 

Everything was starting to look up when Ultra Magnus arrived. Optimus and Magnus spend a lot of time talking about the decepticons. Bumblebee had asked Ratchet if he would have to tell Magnus what had happened but Ratchet had told him that he would need to leave that to Optimus. That the Prime would choice a good time to tell what happened.

So when Ultra Magnus ordered the bots to move with him to have some outside training when Optimus one on one of his own patrols the tension rose again. No one went against it and the bots left the base. Ratchet stayed behind to watch the groundbridge but before they all left the medic pulled the scout to the side “If anything happens. Contact me and I will bridge you out of there. You hear me?” Bumblebee had nodded and promised he would watch out.

The training was boring and to be honest. It fell good to be out again with the others.

Since that day Bumblebee left the base more often, always with someone but at least he got out again. Bee mostly left with Arcee seeing as the femme didn’t want to leave the younger mech alone.

Things were starting to look up again… Of course that is the moment that Primus decided that it was time to change it up a bit.

Bumblebee and Arcee were out on their patrol when they got the comm. from Ultra Magnus. :: Ultra Magnus to whoever can here me. Wheeljack and myself are requesting backup:: On the background the the femme and mech could hear the fighting and wheeljack screaming that he didn’t need backup. The motor and car changed course and set of towards the autobots in need. “You sure about this Bee? Maybe you should go back to base and…” Bumblebee sighed “ **Cee… please. I know what happened but I am still an autobot. We haven’t seen Soundwave outside anytime in these past two weeks. Let’s just go help Wheeljack and Ultra Magnus** ” Arcee nodded, as much as she could in her alt mood, “Let’s save those two idiots.”

.~,~.

The two entered the battlefield and started to shoot away at the cons there. The vehicons dropped like flies as the two made their way though. It didn’t take long for the autobots to gain the upper hand as they fought the cons off.

Everything went quiet when the last vehicon was downed. The four autobots looked around before Arcee turned towards ultra Magnus “What happened?” Ultra Magnus turned away from the femme while he talked “We picked up a possible energon signal and went to investigate. We found these vehicons and they spotted us.” Wheeljack pointed at some mine “Looks like we found one of the cons’ mines.” The four autobots all moved towards the entrance. 

Ultra Magnus stopped by the entrance “Someone will need to stand guard. Wheeljack.” Wheeljack was about to go against it when Arcee gave him a glare. No way that they were leaving bee outside to watch everything or that Arcee was letting Bee out of her sight. Wheeljack sighed and went to stand next to the entrance. The three other bots walked into the mine.

The energon mine was mostly empty so it was save to say that it was one of the older ones. Non the less the autobots collected whatever energon they could and requested a groundbridge. 

The four started to work together to move the energon though the bridge. None noticed that they were being watched. The circumstances weren’t ideal for Soundwave’s taste but they would have to do. The con had planted some explosions around the mine while they had been working and would have to blow up whatever was left of it to make the bots distracted long enough to take the scout. But with the energon there it could turn into a disaster really quick. So he waited.

The ex-wrecker moved into the mine to check if they had gotten all the energon when Soundwave set off his trap.

The mine blow up and the three bots moved towards the now caved in mine. Ultra Magnus stood were the entrance had once been “Wheeljack?! Wheeljack can you hear us?” Bumblebee looked at the older mech “I can’t reach his comm.” Arcee nodded “I already contacted Ratchet. He says that Smokescreen and Bulkhead are already on their way and that he will contact Optimus with the groundbridge.” Ultra Magnus nodded “Arcee, go meet the others half way and lead them here. Bumblebee see if you can find some crack to get to Wheeljack quicker.” The two nodded and did as ordered.

Soundwave stalked after the scout until he was far away enough from the now in comment autobot. 

Bumblebee scanned the walls when he heard a voice “Sorry, this will hurt for a bit.” Bumblebee was about to turn around when he felt a shock though his protoform and fell his processor offline.

.~,~.

Soundwave caught the yellow bot and removed the feeler from the medical port. The con quickly scanned around him but Laserbeak informed him that Magnus was still by the cave in. Soundwave lifted the scout up and called up his own groundbridge.

The silent con stepped though it and disappeared to the Nemesis.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait... sorry for that... but i am back :D kinda  
> ...  
> *dives away from a tomato*  
> okay okay. just go read it and enjoy ¬.¬

Stepping though the groundbridge and he had done it. He had finally done it. He finally had Bumblebee, now it was a matter of keeping him safe from the other decepticons.

The vehicons looked confused at the sight but know better then to say anything about it. He was the Third in Commend after all. Those who went against him tended to disappear and to be never seen again.

Soundwave opened a communication link with his lord ::.Soundwave report: Mission Success. Autobot, Bumblebee, acquired.::

The reply from his lord came quickly ::.Good work Soundwave. Get the autobrat to the medbay and have his weapons removed, his communication link jammed and his transformation cogs disabled.::

Soundwave send over that he had heard it and made his way towards the medbay. His price carefully held in his arms. The halls were deserted and Soundwave liked it that way. No one was going to hurt his bot if no one saw him, the decepticon officer knew that Bumblebee wouldn’t be happy with being locked up but it would be for his own good. If the other decepticons saw him without Soundwave being close by, they would hurt him and Soundwave couldn’t have that happening to his sweet bot.

The trip to the medbay was quiet and peaceful. Once Soundwave entered the medbay he scanned the room, aside from Knockout no one else was there and that pleased the TIC. Knockout looked up from his work and stared in shock as Soundwave put an autobot on the berth. Soundwave turned towards the medic.

“Megatron, Send message. ‘Get the autobrat to the medbay and have his weapons removed, his communication link jammed and his transformation cogs disabled.’ Knockout start working.” The sentence was a combination of Megatron’s and Starscream’s voices. Knockout nodded and moved towards the berth with the downed autobot.

Knockout brought out his tools while Soundwave kept a careful watch. As the awkwardness and tension grow Knockout felt more and more nervous as his superior watched his every move. “You know, I would be able to work a lot faster if you weren’t watching my every move.” Silence was Knockout’s only answer. Knockout calmed himself with a few deep vents before continuing with his job. He couldn’t help but let his optics trace over the Autobot’s frame. Thoughts running of with the sight ‘I gotta admit. Soundwave has a good taste in toys. Maybe Breakdown and I will be allowed to play with him once in the future.’. Soundwave glared behind his visor and replayed Megatron’s voice “Get back to work.” Knockout nods and quickly continued to do his job, carefully keeping his thoughts in check just in case.

While Knockout works on the Autobot Starscream walks in, “Doctor, I am in need of-” Starscream stops in the middle of his sentence when he sees the Autobot. “… What is an autobot doing on the Nemesis? And while we are at it, why isn’t said autobot offlined yet?” Starscream looked from Soundwave to Knockout. Knockout held a servo up in surrender “Don't look at me. I am just doing my job.” Then the red medic started to grin “But, if you really want to know, this is Soundwave’s new pet.” Soundwave didn’t even turn towards the medic as he gave his order in Megatron’s voice, “Knockout, back to work.” Knockout quickly turned back towards the autobot and set on with removing the weapons.

Starscream glares at the communication officer, “Have you lost your processor or something?! Now the autobots will be all over the Nemesis!” Soundwave stayed calm as he replied, “Negative. Signal blocked. Autobot untraceable.” Soundwave could see that Starscream was about ready to explode, “Lord Megatron. Had approved of operation.” Soundwave let it at that, he didn’t want to have to use his real voice to Starscream. It wasn’t important if he liked it or not, Megatron had given his go ahead and that was all what he had needed to complete his plan.

Knockout set the last block in place and nodded. “I have disabled the communication and the transformations cogs. The weapons have been removed as you asked. Anything else?” Soundwave send out a quick ‘Negative.’ and picked up the small autobot again. After nodding his goodbye to the good doctor and the still furious SIC Soundwave left the medbay and made his way towards his quarters. 

Starscream and Knockout are left standing in the medbay. “Soundwave has finally lost his processor.” Starscream spoke with barely concealed anger to which Knockout replied with a shrug, “Can’t say I am surprised. It was a matter of time really.” And continued with cleaning the medbay up. Starscream left the medbay to go to the throne room, time for a talk with Megatron.

.~,~.

Soundwave made his way towards his quarters quickly and quietly. He walked though his office into his personal quarters which were connected to them. He had his own washing room as well but he ignored those. He gently place the scout on his berth and looked him over. When he spotted a few scratches and dirt on the plating he frowned. ‘I can’t have that…’ he walked over to his cabinet and looked though it. He spotted some cleaning solution and a cloth. Having acquired the items he needed he made his way back to the berth. On his way he removed his visor so he could admire the bot with his own optics.

“Gorgeous.” Soundwave mumbled as he stared at the younger mech. with careful and gentle circles he cleaned of the dirt and removed the scratches. After the yellow armour was shining again Soundwave put the cleaning items away and took a hold on the translator from the scout. With a quick and calculated movement the translator unlocked and came off. Soundwave put the translator in his subspace so he wouldn’t lose it. 

Soundwave looked at the sleeping scout and smiles softly. Just knowing that he was finally here with him made Soundwave happy. Soundwave saw the scars once more and softly run his digits over them. “That looks like it would have hurt.” Ravage had entered the room and looked over the side of the berth. “I thought you were on patrol?” Ravage grinned “I was but Laserbeak was willing to take over for me” Soundwave nodded and continued to watch the scout. “I am going to get some energon for when he wakes up. Ravage. Stay on guard while I am gone.” Soundwave stood up, walked to his desk and put his visor back on “No one Is allowed to enter.” Ravage nodded and sat up straight “Got it master.” Soundwave nods at Ravage and leaves the room and office to locate and obtain the energon.

.~,~.

His processor hurt like pit.

Some would say that you would get used to forced shutdown. Well, they lied. You don't. A groan escaped Bumblebee as he tried to get his processor to online properly. The autobot wasn’t sure what had forced the shut down but he would worry about that later. Now it was important that he woke up again and could check where he was.

The only good thing was that he by now knew the steps to online his processor by spark. Once his optics worked again he looked around. He was laying on a berth in a pretty big room, the walls were dark grey and the floor was black. In a corner of the room stood a terminal and against another wall a big cabinet with data pads. The autobot felt confused as he sat up and tried to understand where he was. He looked though his memory files and suddenly remembered what had happened with the energon mine and the cave in and suddenly the voice behind him.

Bumblebee’s optics went wide as he shot up fully and looked around thinking ‘ooow no no no no no. This can’t be happening…’ Bee looked around and found the door. The autobot run to it and tried to open it, only to find it locked ‘Of course…’. A quick scan of the room showed that there was no other possible exit. The autobot nodded to himself ‘fine, then I will just try something else’. Only then he found out that all his transformation cogs were blocked and the same went for his communication link. Bee glared at his hands and sighed ‘Why am I even surprised?’.

Another scan of the room only showed a cube of energon on the nightstand. The autobot looked around before walking towards the cube. The cube just stood on the nightstand with a small data pad next to it. Bumblebee picked the data pad up and opened the file on it.

_If you read this it means you woke up before I returned. I left a cube of energon for you on the nightstand. I will be back after my shift.  
~ Soundwave_

Bumblebee stared at the message and then at the energon.

This was confusing but it at least explained what happened at the energon mine.

The autobot glared at the energon distrusting ‘No way in pit am I going to drink that’ the autobot looked around once more and sighed as he sat back on the berth ‘how am I going to get out of here…’

.~,~.

Soundwave was distracted. How could he not be? The mech which had been the centre of his thoughts was in his room while he stood on the bridge working. No one was aware of that he was distracted of course, but Soundwave knew it, his cassettes knew it. Thinking about cassettes, he would need to send Frenzy and Rumble a message explaining about his Autobot.

That was all a worry for later, no now he needed to finish up his work and get back to his autobot.

The bridge was quiet and that is how Soundwave liked it to be. Laserbeak has finished with her, while really Ravage’s, patrols and had joined the other cassette and guarding his room and office. Normally Soundwave wasn’t this paranoid. But normally he didn’t have a sweet autobot in his room to which other decepticons may think they could have fun with.

Soundwave concentrated on calming down before anyone could notice his anger, no, the sooner Soundwave was finished with his job the better.

.~,~.

Starscream stormed into the throne room “Megatron! A word please?!”

Megatron just sighed and looked up from his possible new attack plan “What is it this time Starscream?”

Starscream glared at his leader as he spoke “Soundwave has brought an Autobot into the Nemesis! Saying that you agreed to that! Have you lost your processor? The autobots will do almost everything to get their fellow autobot back!”

Megatron turned back to his computer “I don't see the problem. The moment those autobots set a pedal in here they will be destroyed and defeated.”

“I still think it isn’t a good idea to let that autobot in here sir. I think we should-” Megatron turned towards Starscream and spoke straight though his second in commend.

“You are in no place to question me Starscream. Remember your place is far beneath me.” 

Starscream started to get angry but tried again “I am just saying that-”

Megatron turned back to the computer “Why don't you go make yourself useful and check on the flyers or something.”

Starscream glared but answered with a ‘yes my lord’ and left the bridge, swearing to himself that he would make Megatron pay for that and started to plan.

.~,~.

The moment Breakdown returned to the medbay he was confused to see knockout cleaning up quietly. Seeing as that was mainly his job as an assistant. After a nanosecond of watching confused breakdown took the work over and knockout went to clean and wax himself. Happily telling Breakdown what had happened and what Soundwave did.

“Wait, so Soundwave choice an autobot as pet?” Breakdown looked at knockout in shock, not truly believing it. Knockout just nodded “Correct. He walked right in, made my remove the weapons and disable transforming and stuff like that. Got even passive aggressive the moment I thought of borrowing his toy for a playdate with us” Knockout shrugged and continued talking “Soundwave is very possessive of his toys I guess.” Breakdown smiled and shook his head.

“I believe that is because almost everyone always destroys his computer whenever they use it. guess he is not going to take any risks.” 

Knockout looked up insulted “Me? Destroying his stuff? Why would he think that!”

Breakdown decided to act smart and not react to that and decided to redirect the conversation back to the main topic “and Megatron really agreed to Soundwave having an autobot in his room? I mean… isn’t his room connected to his office and wouldn’t that be dangerous with the information stored there?” Knockout thought for a while before shrugging.

“Guess he isn’t worried about that. I do know I disabled the kids communication and with Soundwave being around there so I guess that Soundwave would be able to stop that from happening.” 

Breakdown nodded “I guess that makes sense.”

Knockout finished his waxing and watched breakdown clean up the medbay. “So how long do you think it will take before Soundwave is bored of his new pet?”

Breakdown stopped cleaning and looked up “I am not sure… probably when he realises that it is a bit more work then he thought having a pet would be.” 

Knockout laughed and nodded “Seriously Breakdown? It is Soundwave. I bet he already got a plan on what to do with him when he is done.” Breakdown nodded at that “You are right… Soundwave does plan for everything…”

Knockout laughed and Breakdown smiled, silently apologizing to Soundwave though his thoughts in case he heard them, better save then sorry after all.

.~,~.

To say Arcee was angry would be an understatement. She was furious. You go away for just a nanosecond and the next thing you know is your best friend kidnapped because someone thought it was a good idea to split up.

Some would say that Arcee was being unfair by being this angry at Ultra Magnus for something that was not in his power. But those would never dare to say it in the angry femme’s face.

The worst part was that they hadn’t even noticed until it was far to late. The moment Arcee had arrived with the others Ultra Magnus had managed to make a start with opening the cave in and they had worked together to open it up. they had gone in and found Wheeljack out cold and they had called for a groundbridge to get back to base.

It wasn’t until a bit later that Arcee noticed that bee wasn’t around. she had gone back to the cave in after they hadn’t managed to reach him with the communication links and went to reach for him. After a long joor she had to give up and return to base.

Now Optimus Prime was talking to Ultra Magnus while Ratchet repaired Wheeljack. Smokescreen had said that they had at least more energon now, this had ended with a few blaster-burns on his plating and an even angrier femme. 

It was safe to say that the training area was going though a lot of damage.

At least that is what the autobots thought.

Arcee was sitting outside on top of the base looking out into the desert. Feeling like she should have seen that Soundwave had been planning something, feeling like she had let her friend down. Arcee glared down the cliff and sighed as she threw a rock down. watching it fall and trying to think of a way to get Bee back safely.

Till now she hadn’t managed to think of anything.

The femme sighed as she watched the clouds go by, feeling more lonely then normally. Whenever Arcee was sad Bee would come and sit with her to listen to her and help her. Bee was there to help with her lost over Tailgate and later with her lost of Cliffjumper. And now she couldn’t even help him with keeping him safe from Soundwave.

The sun was setting and the air was growing cold. Arcee watched the air go dark, she knew she would have to go back inside again soon but didn’t want to, going in there would mean that she would have to see that Bee was gone and that they didn’t know a way to get him back yet. They couldn’t contact or locate Bumblebee yet. Meaning that they still hadn’t made any progress. And that she couldn’t handle right now, she wanted to do something, anything to get her friend back. Arcee was so deep in her thoughts she didn’t hear the pedals walk towards her.

“Mind if I sit with you?” 

Arcee looked up to see Wheeljack standing behind her.

“ow… Hello Wheeljack. I see you are free from Ratchet already.” 

Wheeljack nods and sit down next to the femme. They sit in silence as they watch the sky grew darker. 

“We will get him out. You know that right?” Wheeljack looked at the femme, “There is no way we will leave him in Soundwave’s claws. It is a matter of time before we have the kid here again.”

Arcee looked at Wheeljack before sighing as she answered “He was never supposed to be caught. I promised I would help keep him save. And I failed at that.” The femme turned her optics back to the sky and thought ‘It is Tailgate and Cliffjumper all over again…’

Wheeljack smiled at the femme and put his hand on the smaller cybertronium’s shoulder “We will save him. You will see.”

Arcee looked at the wrecker and nodded “I am not leaving him behind. No matter what. He is going to come back here and he is going to be fine.” Arcee nodded to herself as she made her promise. One that she was intended to keep no matter what happened.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Soundwave and Bee are getting closer!  
> Well, Soundwave tries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone pointed out the problem with Airachnid's name. (they shouldn't change it each version but this was the name on the transformers prime wiki so this it is.)
> 
> as for what laserbeak says with 'sir' yes. I do mean that word. And no, I wasn't looking for the word 'Sire'.

Bumblebee shot out of recharge when he heard the door in the other room close. He wasn’t sure what was behind the first door but he could guess who had just entered that room. He sat up from his sleeping position and groaned as some cables protested, he really shouldn’t sleep half sitting.  
The noise in the other room was gone but the Autobot knew better and stayed quiet as he sat in the corner of the berth, carefully watching the door.

It wasn’t much later that the door opened and Soundwave walked in with Laserbeak and the cybercat Ravage.

Ravage immediately jumped on the berth and sniffed the yellow mech’s leg. Bumblebee moved his leg away but the cybercat seemed unbothered and calmly walked with it to continue sniffing it. 

Laserbeak herself flow around the room and landed on top of the cabinet closet in what looked like a small nest. She rolled up there to sleep herself.

Soundwave was standing quietly in the doorway as he watched the Autobot.

Bumblebee quickly realised that Ravage wasn’t going to quit and decided he could spend his time better. Like glaring at the Decepticon that had walked in and who had kidnapped him.

Said Decepticon wasn’t sure what to do, he honestly had only planned on how to get Bumblebee here and how to keep him safe from the other Decepticons. Not on how he should deal with the aftermath of the kidnapping or on how to make clear to the Autobot that he didn’t have any plans to hurt him.  
Soundwave slowly stepped into the room, very aware of the optics focussed on him as he closed and locked the door behind him. He walked over to his desk and put down a few datapads, planning on cleaning those up later as he turned back towards the mech on his berth.

By now Ravage was done with sniffing and had rolled up next to the young mech to get in some recharge. Soundwave noticed the still full energon cube. The Decepticon picked it up and held it out to the Autobot.

Bumblebee didn’t make any movement as he just continued to glare at Soundwave, he stared to say something but all that came out was a protesting sound from his inner works from his broken vocal cords. Bumblebee’s servo shot up to the scared neck cables and moved up only to discover that his translator was gone. Blue optics glared at the Decepticon as the Autobot guessed who had stolen his Translator.

“Translator, less than optimal. Solution not yet ready but being worked on.” Soundwave spoke as he removed his own visor, hoping that that would maybe look less threatening to his little Autobot. This wasn’t going as how Soundwave had hoped but not as bad as he had feared.

The glare hadn’t changed but the Decepticon had expected that. He picked the energon cube up again and held it out to the Autobot as he sat down next to Bumblebee. The Autobot didn’t reach for the cube but he did move, though it was away from Soundwave, the optics still glared distrusting. 

Soundwave ignored the pain that came with that action and didn’t let himself get discouraged as he held out the cube and spoke: “You need to drink energon to function correctly.”

Bumblebee turned his head away showing no intension on accepting the cube from the con. Soundwave stayed still for a little longer before setting the cube on the nightstand. Planning on replacing the cube this evening for a new one.

Silence returned as Soundwave tried to think of something to talk about. Luckily it seemed that his cassettes were always ready to help him and Ravage decided to snuggle closer to the warmth coming from the yellow mech. Bumblebee seemed unsure on what to do about the cassette laying so close. Soundwave watched his Deployer as the cybercat snuggled into Bumblebee’s lap, clearly on his own mission.

Laserbeak was watching her brother from her nest with amusement, which Soundwave felt coming from his other Deployer. Soundwave was torn between removing Ravage so that Bumblebee was a bit more relaxed and letting the cassette be and see what Bumblebee would do.

Soundwave decided to do the second option.

It took a while but it seemed that Bumblebee accepted his faith with the small minicon. Soundwave had the strong desire to read the others mind but managed to stop himself, he doubted that reading the others mind would help this relationship forwards in a positive way.

Soundwave was about to say something when his comm. link gave him a message, he was needed on the bridge. Soundwave cursed in his mind as he stood up and put his visor back in place. Bumblebee followed him with his optics.

“Soundwave, return soon. Needed on bridge.” Soundwave quickly explained as he moved to the door “Return soon. Bring new energon.” And the con left though the door. Bumblebee heard it being locked from the other side.

The Autobot looked around once more before he looked at the cube once again. He ignored his hunger and laid down to get some recharge. He wasn’t going to fall for whatever that Con was planning.

.~,~.

To say that Soundwave was annoyed would be an understatement. He was standing on the bridge in his off-cycle listening to Starscream who was ranting to Megatron about his Autobot. The need to read their processors and get them to stop it was strong but he didn’t do it. Right now it was better to watch how it would play out and make sure he repaired any damage. 

Soundwave wasn’t the only one there, Airachnid was also on the bridge with a few of her Insecticons. She seemed surprised at the news and she had turned to watch him with curious optics which seemed to plot. He kept a careful look on the others mind as it turned around ideas and plans where she could this turn of events for her own good.

“This will only end as a disaster for the Decepticons! The best thing to do now would be to eliminate that Autobot and send the spare parts back to those group of dustkickers.” Starscream’s opinion on the situation was clear as it could possibly be.

Megatron was clearly annoyed at the seeker. “I have already spoken about this matter Starscream.” Megatron spoke slowly: “And I will only repeat myself once more, The Autobot is now Soundwave responsibility. If he is done he will dispose of him. Now get back to work.”

Starscream seemed ready to continue but turned around and left the bridge, Soundwave managed to catch a few lines of thoughts which seemed to circle around ‘I will show that fragger’ and ‘See that glitch manage without me.’ But the others were a bit unclear. That of Soundwave wasn’t really interested in what the flyer thought. The danger for his Autobot had disappeared for now and that was all that mattered.

Soundwave turned his sight back to the computer of the ship to check the information on there while all the others left the bridge. How he wanted to leave and try to get closer to his bot. but he would have to wait his change.

.~,~.

A soft tapping noise sounded though the hall as black heals made their way towards the Third in Commends office and chambers. To say that Airachnid was surprised about the news would have been obvious, but she was also curious. From what she remembered Arcee cared a lot for that yellow scout, much as a brother, the fact that said yellow scout was within reach would mean it was the perfect time to get some revenge. Maybe make a good torture video and send it to her. Or just do a classic of cutting or some armour and a servo and send it to her. 

Ooow the options were endless.

So of course she left the bridge and made her way to the office quickly. If she was fast she would remove one of the servos to use for her plan. Soundwave wouldn’t be to mad as long as she left his toy online.

The most annoying thing about Soundwave was the fact that he was paranoid. Whenever he left his office he would lock it up and put extra passwords and codes on it. Somewhere the femme hunter could understand that but she wasn’t going to admit it. Right now it was in her way so it was annoying and bothering.

After a long time of trying codes and curses the door finally opened up. Soundwave’s office was shortly said, boring. Everything was clean and put away. Luckily she wasn’t interested into what was hidden in the office. No she had business with what was inside Soundwave’s room. She walked towards the sleeping chambers and moved to open it. 

Only to hear a loud growl.

She turned just in time to dodge an attack from that damned minion of Soundwave.

The cybercat was growling as one of those mini-flyers sat on the desk watching her with a small red blinking light.

Damn those annoying little spies and their recording mods.

“Listen good you little monsters. I want into that room right now.” The femme ordered.  
The two minicons just stared at her with no interest and Ravage didn’t move to let her though.

“You two should know that I got the accord from Megatron to interrogate the Autobot.” The femme bluffed.

Both the cassettes didn’t react.

The femme glared “And as Decepticons you two will follow Megatron’s orders!” The femme reached for the door as she spoke.

“Conclusion incorrect” The voice was soft and very femme-like. The spider like Decepticon turned around. 

The voice came from the minicon on the desk “Cassettes don’t follow the Decepticons. We only follow Soundwave. This is why we only follow the orders given directly from Soundwave. Hereby do we request you to leave before we will have to take action.” The small flyer spoke as if she was speaking to a youngling who stole energon-goodies.

Airachnid was furious “I demand you two let me in!”

Ravage growled and spoke “Leave now or we will make you.”

“I would like to see you two useless drones try.” And with that said she sealed her faith.  
Ravage jumped up and attacked the femme with a great speed in the hope to catch her by surprised.  
Sadly Airachnid has fast reflexes and dodged the attack and threw a punch at the in midjump cybercat.

Ravage managed to twist and land without any damage and moved to attack again.  
Laserbeak has taken off into the air and was circling the battle in the office.  
Airachnid pulled out her weapons and transformed into her beast-like alt mood.  
Ravage run between the spider legs and dodged whatever shot Airachnid tried to hit him with.  
Then the door opened.

Soundwave stopped in the door opening with a new cube of energon in his servo. His visor hidden face took in what was going on and spoke with different recorder conversations "Airachnid… Explain situation…. To… Soundwave?”

The femme turned and spoke “Soundwave! Good to see you. I am here to check on the Autobot but your minions won’t let me in.”

“Your supervision... Not needed… Leave.” Soundwave replied. The black femme glared but left the TiC’s office. 

“You two did great work.” Soundwave spoke to his cassettes with his normal voice as he relocked his office. The three walked through the door to Soundwave chambers.

The dark blue mech stopped in the door opening to stare at his Autobot on his berth. Bumblebee has fallen into recharge and was laying on his side slightly rolled up. Ravage run into the room quietly and jumped on the berth as well. The cassette made himself comfortable by the slightly bend legs from the recharging mech. Laserbeak flow over Soundwave and landed on the headboard of the berth.

Soundwave himself locked the door and walked over as well, noticing that the cube with energon, again, hadn’t been touched. He filed that away in the back of his mind as he lay behind the sleeping mech. He softly stroked one of those beautiful wings before pulling his servo back to himself. 

His little scout was safe now, he would make sure that the yellow mech wouldn’t be hurt.

.~,~.

Soundwave started out his day as he always did. Drink the old energon that was still on the nightstand, get a new cube of energon for his quest. And move to the bridge to work.

Not the most exciting but it worked. Sadly Bumblebee had yet to drink any of the energon Soundwave  
left for him and that wouldn’t do. Four earth days had already past and while it wasn’t that much for a transformer it still wasn’t comfortable to go without fresh fuel. 

But the Decepticon was expected on the bridge and because of this he left his cassettes with the order to try and get Bumblebee to at least drink a little of the energon. Ravage and Laserbeak were more than just okay with that mission. 

Thanks to that fact Soundwave was be able to go to the bridge feeling a bit relaxed. 

.~,~.

Bumblebee awoke a bit later with a small warning before his optics. The warning said that his energon levels were two thirds gone and that refuelling was needed. The yellow bot ignored the  
warning as he sat up to look around. 

Soundwave wasn’t in the room luckily but the two cassettes were. They have been in the room whenever he woke up the last three times. He sat up and stretched for a bit, at least the berth was comfortable to recharge on.

Ravage jumped up and walked towards the mech, cube of energon warped in his tail.

“Here is your energon!” The cybercat set the cube by Bumblebee’s servo and sat down, waiting and watching Bee with expectation on his optics.

Bumblebee ignored the cube as he walked to the cabinet with datapads, looking for something to read so he could pass the time a bit better.

Laserbeak’s voice broke the silence “Sir wants you to refuel.”

Bumblebee rolled his optics, another human thing he copied, of course freaking Soundwave wanted he to refuel the Con was probably planning something in that crazy processor. It was harder to say no to the little ones. The Autobot always had a weak spot for younglings, and in his mind those two little minicons came very close to that.

So instead of glaring, like he would at the Decepticon who kidnapped him, he just waved and shook his head. Hopefully that got the message across fine. It would be a lot easier if he had his translator back but Soundwave had taken it, probably, and he hadn’t seen it ever since he lost his conscious back at that mine.

After picking out a datapad that looked promising Bumblebee moved back to sit and read on the berth. He lay on his front to keep his door wings comfortable and onlined the datapad.  
Not even a breem had passed before Ravage lay by him to rest. Laserbeak had flown back to the small nest on top of the cabinet to rest there for a while.

The silence returned as Bumblebee read though the datapad quickly. He would admit that Soundwave had a good collection of old Cybertronium stories. 

They sat together in silence for a cycle before Laserbeak rose and flow to sit on the headboard. “sir does want what is good for you…”.

Bumblebee gave Laserbeak a disbelieving and half annoyed look before turning back to the datapad.

“I know that sir isn’t good at showing it. But he is really trying his best.” The small femme tried again.

The yellow mech placed the datapad away as he sat up, showing he was listening to what the small flyer was saying but with his expression showing he didn’t believe it.

Laserbeak saw this as a step in the good direction and flow to sit in the other’s lap “I know he hasn’t been handling this the best way possible… But he really does want to do this good and keep you safe.”

Bumblebee still didn’t look closer to believing it as he waved around the room.  
Laserbeak luckily had much experience with reading others without needing to listen to what others said “As I said. Sir could have handled it better but this never happened to him before. He went with what would have the highest rate of success.”

Bumblebee just looked unimpressed as Laserbeak continued “I know that you won’t believe this… at least not now, and I know that this isn’t proving it but he really didn’t mean to hurt you…”  
Laserbeak watched as Bumblebee thought that over but could see that the other didn’t believe her. That was fine though, it would take time and patience before he would believe that and who knows, maybe accept it.

But that were worries for later. Right now the other needed to drink his energon. Laserbeak’s scanners told her that the others energon levels were around the thirty-two percent. She did not like that at all and so she nudges the cube closer to the stubborn Autobot.

Bumblebee however ignored the cube and returned to reading the datapad.

This was going to be a matter of not giving up.

.~,~.

Maybe he should have just given in and drunk the energon that had been offered.

It sure would have helped with this drowsy feeling.

Bumblebee shook his head to try and wake up a bit. This was not the normal recharge sleepy feeling, no this was the ‘You have been an idiot who didn’t refuel enough’-sleepy feeling. The scout felt off-balanced and tilted to the side as time went by.

And he fell sideways on the berth which he had been sitting on. He didn’t hear anything as an error appeared again. Just five percent of his normal energon levels and that was pretty critical. Everything was unfocused but he was aware of the fact that Ravage was scanning him again.

He should have just drunk that damn energon.

Everything turned dark after that.

.~,~.

Soundwave made his way to the energon dispenser to get new energon cubes, he hoped that Bumblebee had drunk the cube he had left for him but maybe that would be to much to ask-

‘ _Master!! We have a problem!_ ’ That was Ravage.

Soundwave stopped and concentrated on the panic he felt though his bond with his cassettes ‘Ravage, Laserbeak. What happened?’

‘ _It is Bumblebee sir. He still didn’t drink his energon and his levels just hit critical._ ’ Laserbeak sounded calmer but Soundwave still felt the panic and worry.

‘I am on my way. With extra energon.’ Soundwave had hoped that his scout would just drink it but he wasn’t above taking it in his own servos to get it done. 

After quickly filling up more cubes Soundwave made his way back to his own room. He shut off his communication systems so he wouldn’t be called away, he had something much more important to worry about then whatever little fights Starscream would get himself into.

The dark mech quickly locked the room and made his way to the berth. He sat on it and pulled the Autobot into his lap and made sure that the door wings weren’t uncomfortable as they rested against his chestplates. 

Soundwave removed his visor and bit off a corner of an energon cube before placing the open cube by the younger mech’s intakes. The yellow mech stirred and turned to get some much needed fuel in.  
Soundwave slowly let the other drink so the other didn’t choke on the energon.  
After the first two cubes blue optics opened again and looked slightly confused up. Soundwave calmly petted the yellow helm which lay on his shoulder. “sshhh… It is okay, just drink. You need to get the fuel.”.

Soundwave noted happily that the other just let him feed him. This was a big step and Soundwave was content with taking care of the other. It may still take a while but this was better, maybe now he could finally get the repairs for the vocal box ready.

.~,~.

Megatron just didn’t realize what kind of danger that Autobot would be.

He didn’t realize that he NEEDED him! Without him Megatron was nothing!

Starscream was furious as he packed a few cubes of energon.

The glorious leader of the Decepticons would soon realize just how much he needed him.

Starscream smirked as he jumped off the hanger and transformed. 

Let’s see how the other would fair without his help.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More build up this chapter. Don't worry. I am planning something. But I will need a bit of a... functional relationship between Sounders and Bee

Others often thought of him as naïve. Too young to realise what is going on or what others were thinking about while in reality that wasn’t true.

Bumblebee didn’t have the illusion that he was a genius or anything like that. He didn’t hold up the illusion that he knew everything that was going on and he knew there would always be things he didn’t understand.

But he was not naïve. He knew what those looks meant, what others implead when the high grade had been flowing. He had been trained by Kup and Jazz for crying out loud. He had worked on the Ark before it was docked. These facts were often forgotten by the bots.

Bumblebee grinned from his spot. Arcee had thrown a fit when he had first been offered to be trained by Kup. Ironhide had been very proud of Arcee’s accurate shooting Ratchet had been less amused by the whole situation.

The scout sighed as he rolled unto his back, ignoring his wings for now as he stared at the ceiling.   
Arcee had always been protective of him ever since they had been younger. He wasn’t sure what it had been that made Arcee overprotective but he knew it had gotten worse when his vocals had been ripped out.

Bumblebee traced the scars on his neck cables as he thought. He hadn’t even been supposed to be the one to go out there but the scout who had been meant to go had gotten damaged and his training was good enough to join the scouts. He had wanted to help and Jazz hadn’t minded him joining the scouts instead of continuing his special ops training and so he had gone.

He never regretted doing the mission. He had helped and he had lived to tell the tale. The only thing he regretted was getting caught and losing his voice.

Bumblebee sighed and shook his head. Thinking about those things weren’t going to help him in the least.

The point was. He wasn’t naïve. If he had been he wouldn’t have made it this far. He also wasn’t blind to the fact that Soundwave had been sexual attractive to him. Bumblebee managed to keep a shudder down.

But that is the thing. He know that Soundwave wasn’t above just using him, the con had proven that by taken advantage of his heat, but what did Soundwave gain by just keeping him locked up?

Bumblebee groaned as he rubbed his optics. He was missing something, he had to be. 

The scout sat up and looked around the room. It seemed that he was alone today. He picked up the energon and drunk is slowly, he had learned his lesson and if he wanted to find a way out he would need his energy and a focused processor.

Once finished he put the now empty cube back on the nightstand and thought. Soundwave also made sure that his energon levels were above the eighty percent. He had discovered this by the fact that he hadn’t drunk the energon the decepticon had brought after-

Bumblebee felt embarrassed at the memory of being feed energon by Soundwave and quickly skipped it.

The next morning his energon levels had been at around the seventy five percent and because of that he hadn’t drunk the cube standing ready for him. When Soundwave returned he had held the energon up for the bot. Bumblebee had tried to explain his energy levels were still on a comfortable level but that hadn’t worked out. He had almost ended with Soundwave feeding him again.

But all the embarrassment aside, why would Soundwave even bother with feeding him? 

Bumblebee groaned as he stood up and walked around the room. He had enough of being locked up but going out now would mean his own end. He had no weapons to defend himself with. His communication was still offline meaning he would have to make it to the bridge to get into contact with his team.   
Aside from that he would also have to get the ground bridge to work to get back home.

The Autobot sighed as he sat back down. Thinking up an escape plan wasn’t going as good as he would have liked.

His thoughts returned to the weird behaviour of Soundwave. As the little ones had already pointed out has Soundwave not yet hurt him. From what the scout had managed to gather was that Soundwave didn’t seem to have any idea how to react to most normal situations. 

Bumblebee knew that Soundwave was a very efficient officer and communication officer but he didn’t seem all that of an expert in communication itself. He also didn’t seem to understand the concept of personal space.

He had discovered this fact at night. Now that his energy level were kept above the eighty percent meant that he couldn’t get into his recharge cycle as easily. He simply wasn’t used to having so much energy available at all times and made him more restless.

It had already been late at night, at least Bumblebee had thought that, as he laid in the dark. As always he laid on his side, back to the door and close to the wall. He had heard the door open and he quickly offlined his optics. He hadn’t been willing to be social to Soundwave and had hoped he could fool the con into thinking he was in recharge.

Bumblebee had focused on the sensors in his wings knowing that Soundwave would be too quiet to pick up with his audio receptors, which were just not fine-tuned enough. He felt more than heard the Decepticon move around. Bumblebee made sure to keep himself relaxed as he waited to see what the Decepticon would do.

He felt Soundwave moving closer and made sure to stay relaxed and to keep his mind clear just in case Soundwave would check it.

When he felt Soundwave sit down on the berth he felt a bit more worried but pushed said worry down. Panicking wouldn’t help him now.

The Decepticon laid on the bed and the next thing he noticed where two arms around him. One arm sneaked it’s way under him and across his chest plates. The other arm sneaked around his waist and rested there.

The normally faceless mech entered recharge and went completely still while Bumblebee laid there uncomfortable. Was this a normal thing?

Later on Bumblebee learned that this, in matter of fact, was a normal thing. The next night Bumblebee had stayed out of recharge on purpose and the same had happened when Soundwave had returned. 

Now Bumblebee wondered how long this had been going on and if the Con had ever done anything else but harmless cuddling. Bumblebee had spent much time worrying about it before giving the thoughts up. Thinking about it wasn’t going to help and panic wouldn’t help him escape either.

The door in the other room opened and shook the Autobot out of his thoughts.  
Soon the door to his room opened and Laserbeak flew in with Ravage after her. Laserbeak landed on Bumblebee’s shoulder pad and gave Bumblebee a quick nuzzle before flying back to her nest on the cabinet closet.

Ravage run in and joined Bumblebee on the berth and climbed into the yellow mech’s lap.

Soundwave followed after the two with a few reports and made his way to the desk after closing the door. The Decepticon immediately checked the energon and seemed pleased that the scout had drunk it.

Bumblebee watched the Decepticon walk to his desk and get to work. Seemed like Soundwave would once again work in his room. Bumblebee looked back at the datapad he had been reading and weighted his options. He could spend some more time thinking about his situation with the risk of Soundwave watching his thoughts. He could also just continue reading the story he had been reading.

He decided quickly and onlined the datapad. He found where he had left off and continued reading. May as well relax while he can.

.~,~.

Bumblebee had it a bit difficult with ignoring the optics watching him. He didn’t even need to look up to know that Soundwave had finished working and was watching him. But after he had to reread the same line for the fifth time he gave up and looked up.

Soundwave had his purple optics concentrated on him. Bumblebee tilted his head slightly to try to express that he wanted to know why Soundwave was staring.

The Decepticon seemed to think over his worlds as he watched the Autobot. Bumblebee put the datapad away and crossed his arms.

Soundwave looked at a datapad he was holding and looked back at the Autobot “…Soundwave… I mean… I have a proposal for you.”

Bumblebee made an expression that looked like an expression a human would make when raising an eyebrow.

Soundwave took that as his clue to continue “It has to do with your translator and Voice Box” Soundwave sat down next to the Autobot and handed the datapad over. “I have been researching a way to repair yours.”

Bumblebee felt shocked as he heard that and quickly turned to the datapad to read what was written in it. Most of the stuff was a difficult to understand but the overall view of it was understandable. Soundwave had found a way to repair him. He could get his voice back!

This was just too good to be true… what was the catch?   
Bumblebee shot the Decepticon a distrusting look.

Ravage seemed to notice the problem and spoke up “No catch. Boss wants to do something for you to make you happy.”

Bumblebee looked unsure before looking at the plans for his voice box again. It looked like it would work.

Soundwave watched Bumblebee as he spoke “I will do the operation myself. I would have preferred for a medic to do it but Knockout is only an expert in it taking apart of others.”

Bumblebee thought for a while as he went over his options. He didn’t want to own the decepticon anything but he really wanted his voice back. In the end he nodded his acceptance.

.~,~.

The second Bumblebee had given his go ahead Soundwave went to collect the necessary parts for the operation. He had given Bumblebee some special energon to help him recharge though it and to numb any receptors in by his throat.

When the scout awoke again his throat felt of but that was to be expected. He had wanted to try and talk immediately but Laserbeak had advised to wait until he didn’t need any receptor sedations anymore.

Ravage seemed to be the most excited at the fact that Bumblebee was getting his voice back. It seemed like the little cassette had a lot of questions to ask and was dying to finally ask them. Laserbeak was a lot calmer unlike her brother and was watching as the other cassette was rambling to himself.

The scout hadn’t needed the special energon for a few days now. At least Bumblebee thought it were a few days he had lost his sense of time a while ago but he didn’t mind. Bumblebee was more excited to try his voice out and to see if it still sounded the same to him as before.

Soundwave was checking his throat over and carefully touched the still sensitive neck. “Any pains?”   
Bumblebee slowly shook his head.  
Soundwave nodded and sat back “I believe it is safe for you to try to speak. Try not to raise your voice and not to speak to fast.”

Bumblebee nodded and suddenly felt unsure with what to say. Luckily Ravage seemed to have lost the last of his patience and jumped unto the bed next to the scout. “What is your favourite color? Where were you born? What do you do in your free time? What is it like to be an Autobot? Where you always a scout? Where you trained for anything else?” 

Bumblebee smiled as he held up his hand to get the cassette to calm down “One question at the time.” The scouts smile grew as he heard his voice. Primus he had missed being able to speak.

Ravage seemed to freeze and stare in shock before grinning “Awesome! This is going to make having conversations a lot easier!”

Laserbeak flew over and looked worried “It doesn’t hurt to speak right?”

Bumblebee shock his head before realising he could just answer now “It doesn’t hurt at all.” His voice sounded a bit rough but Bumblebee could clearly hear his old voice there. He wasn’t worried, he knew it would return back to normal with time as it healed more.

Ravage was talking up a storm and asking questions as he run around the room. Laserbeak left the room to patrol while Soundwave stayed with him.

Bumblebee looked at the other and saw that Soundwave was once again watching him. Bumblebee sighed but smiled at the other “Thanks… for repairing my voice.”

“It was no problem at all.” Soundwave’s reply was calm and even but he looked rather proud at getting the thank you. Bumblebee nodded and focused back on the excited cassette.

Most of the day was spend answering all of the cassettes questions. Some were easy as asking what his favourite energon goodie was while other questions were about what it felt like to drive down a road in the middle of a rainstorm.

The questions that were the easiest but at the same time the hardest were about his family. When Ravage asked about Bumblebee’s creators the answer was easy. He had never met them. When Ravage asked who had taken care of him instead it had been more difficult. Many different mechs and femmes had helped raise him and he tried to explain that as well. The cassette however couldn’t seem to warp his mind around that as he was used to only having Soundwave and the other cassettes to count on.

Soundwave stayed with the two the whole time. He didn’t ask questions but Bumblebee had no doubt that Soundwave was carefully listening to each of the answers the scout would give the cassette.

The only time Soundwave had left was to get more energon. Ravage was out of questions for the moment and was drinking his own portion. Bumblebee and Soundwave sat in silence as they sipped their own energon.

“You said the Autobots often try to keep you away from the battlefield. I wonder why?” Bumblebee looked up at the older mech as he was once again watching him.

Bumblebee doubted he would get used to Soundwave’s straight forwardness. “As I told Ravage before. I have been raised by them. I guess it is difficult to not let those memories affect decisions.”

Soundwave seemed to think that over “That is not smart. You have proven that you can fight and handle your own battles. Now instead of having an extra soldier they keep you back and lose a possible advantage.”

“Not everyone can make the most… logical decisions when under stress.” Bumblebee looked at his hands. He was often annoyed when others would treat him like a sparkling but he understood the reasoning.

The dark blue mech shook his head “It is foolish.” Those purple optics were once again focused on Bumblebee.

Bumblebee decided to ignore that and to continue drinking his energon. If anyone had ever told him he would have a calm conversation with Soundwave and the other’s cassettes he would have told them to check their processor. And here he was, kidnaped but still having a calm conversation. Maybe it were just his social needs that made him this calm. He had always been a social mech and liked to talk with others. That was one of the reasons it had been so difficult when he lost his voice.

Soundwave had finished his energon and was watching the scout again. Bumblebee knew the other didn’t read his mind for some reason but instead tried to read his body language and facial expressions. Honestly it was getting unnerving. 

The con sat closer as he stared at Bumblebee and the younger one had enough “We really need to talk about personal space.”

Soundwave seemed to stop as he thought that over and looked up any second meanings behind the phrasing before replying. “Why?”

Sometimes it was like talking to a child “Because I like to have space to myself and not have someone breath down my neck all the time.”

Soundwave once again paused to quietly work though his whole sentence before replying “We do not breath.”

The yellow mech looked at the dark blue one and sighed. He kept forgetting how literal Soundwave took things. “Nevermind. Just give me some space.” At least Soundwave did move back a bit this time. Not much but small steps were enough.

.~,~.

Bumblebee was about to doze off when Soundwave walked into the room again. Bumblebee was laying close to the wall with his back turned towards it. Bumblebee heard Soundwave shuffle though the room before he joined him on the bed. 

The scout managed to not sigh and started to count in his mind. It took Soundwave a total of twenty one seconds before he sneaked closer and warped his arms around the supposed to be asleep Autobot.

Enough was enough. He wanted personal space!

“And just what are you doing?” Bumblebee couldn’t help but grin as he saw Soundwave look shocked. It seems like Soundwave really hadn’t noticed him being awake, one point for team Bee!

Soundwave seemed to be lost with what to say.

“This also counts under the need for personal space.” Bumblebee stated calmly.

Soundwave tilted his head slightly as he answered “But I prefer ‘your’ space better than having only my own space.”

Bumblebee stared at the other in disbelieve. Did he just really hear Soundwave say something very cliché and very corny?   
No.  
Bumblebee decided. Soundwave hadn’t even meant it as some kind of pick up line. He meant it completely serious and factual.

The scout sighed as he face-palmed “Hands and arms off of me.”

Soundwave nodded and put some space between them. Not much but Bumblebee took it, it was better than nothing.  
Bumblebee turned unto his other side and try to recharge.

It took under two minutes for those two arms to sneak around his middle again and Bumblebee sighed “Just keep them above the belt.”

Soundwave gave his agreement as he pulled Bee close against him.  
He would try to get Soundwave to fully understand and respect personal space tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aren't they cute together? They are becoming friends :D


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapter! would you look at that. the story is progressing

Dark red optics glared at the workers around him as grey talons tapped on the armrest of his throne.

Starscream had fled again.

The Decepticon lord glared as he thought.

It was truly something for the coward of a seeker to run. But Megatron knew that it was a matter of time before his traitorous second in command would return. What was a surprise however was how long the seeker managed to stay away.

The Seeker had disappeared 14 joors ago. Which equalled to about 23 day cycles on this useless excuse of a planet.

Starscream had nowhere to go on this planet. Not after his last escape and red energon incident. Which meant that the seeker was most likely in one of the Decepticon’s old mines. Hiding away like the little coward he is. 

Megatron sighed and rubbed his forhead in annoyance. Even when the seeker was away he made his processor ache.

If it weren’t for Starscream being his air commander he would have ended the annoyance a long time ago and sadly Starscream was the best at that matter. While he worked as Second in Command Dreadwing was the winglord but Starscream was the commander.

The problem was that he had no one to get his frustration out on. Starscream would always make mistakes which would give him time to vent his many frustrations he had for this war and how it was progressing. 

The Decepticon lord suddenly started to smirk.

Yes. He just had the perfect plan.

A way to get out his aggression and frustrations while also making sure to break the Autobots.

Suddenly he was very happy with his decision to let Soundwave keep that Autobot.

.~,~.

This was his favourite part of every day. Well, second favourite.

Soundwave stared at the sleeping Autobot in his arms. He never understood how someone could feel so much happiness simply by being near someone. It had always confused him when he heard the thoughts circling around those feelings. He had tried to understand. He had to understand to be able to take those into consideration with work performance from the soldiers. But he had never truly been able to understand it.

Now laying in his room. His cassettes close by with the scout sleeping peacefully in his arms he finally understood.

It was something that words couldn’t explain and when you tried to explain it with words. Then the words would do the feeling justice. 

Soundwave didn’t understand why Bumblebee didn’t seem comfortable with it when it felt right to lay with the smaller mech in his arms. On a logical front he could understand. Bumblebee simply wasn’t comfortable enough with him yet because of all the things he had wronged him with. Soundwave stoked the other’s cheek gently, making sure not to wake the other up. It would take time and he had enough of that. He understood that he wouldn’t stand a change at earning the other over until he had repaired all the damage he had done. The voice box was only the start. 

Soundwave let a small smile grace his face as he hugged the Autobot a bit closer. Bumblebee had spoken to him and hadn’t started cursing him out the second he had repaired the vocal box and had even thanked him. It made all the work spend on it more than worth it.

The dark mech returned to his previous thoughts. He was not sure what he should repair next. What could be easily done. The war had taken a lot from many different mechs and had without a doubt taken a lot from Bumblebee as well. But what was the one thing that Bumblebee would want back? The first choice would have obviously have been his voice and he had managed to make that whole again. The scars would remain but at least the voice was functional again.

Soundwave went over the things he knew about Bumblebee, he had thanked Ravage many times for asking all those questions.

Bumblebee was brave and loyal. He knew that from the time they had stood on opposite sides of this war.

Aside from that he had discovered that Bumblebee liked to explore and was curious. The small stories the scout had told Ravage about his sneaking out to explore the ruins from the destroyed cities.

Bumblebee was a social mech and patient. He could see that from the interactions between Bumblebee and his cassettes.

Soundwave frowned. He knew there was more to Bumblebee and he wanted to know it all. But he wished to discover it himself and not though his cassettes anymore. He wanted to ask all the questions that were on his mind. 

Suddenly it hit Soundwave. The telepath smiled as he looked down at the scout. Above all of the things that Bumblebee was, was he caring and open-minded. Not in the way that he could easily read the others mind. He hadn’t even tried that yet and wasn’t planning on it. Everything that he was going to learn about the other mech Soundwave wanted to learn it himself and without cheating by reading the others mind.

No. Bumblebee was much like the Prime. Naïve when trusting others and believing that everyone deserved a second change. Soundwave wanted that second change to prove to Bumblebee that he was serious about this. Whatever this was.

And now Soundwave knew what to do. The one thing that the scout found important in his lifecycle was his family, the Autobots. If it meant earning the others trust than Soundwave would work with that.

From the logical point Soundwave knew just what to do. 

Bumblebee distrusted him because of the damage he and the Decepticons had done? He would repair it.

However, when it came to matters of the spark the third in commend had trouble understanding. He just couldn’t make sense out of the information the feelings brought and what he should do with them.

That had been one of the reasons he had only concentrated on logical factors. They could be calculated and could be trusted to not suddenly change. The spark was more complicated while at the same time simpler. The spark would just feel and react as it felt like was right.

Soundwave found the stability of the logical side more comforting. But the more he was around the Autobot the more he silenced that side of himself and listened to his spark. He understood why Bumblebee didn’t want to be held by his kidnapper but his spark told him to hold the younger mech and show him that he wouldn’t hurt the yellow mech anymore.

Laserbeak and Ravage seemed to understand him. They always understood him no matter what. They understood back when he had switched to only following his processor and silencing his spark’s wishes. Now they understood why he changed and listened to his spark. 

His cassettes where just like that. They stood by him no matter what he did but they weren’t logical. They followed their own sparks into what they felt was right.

Soundwave frowned slightly as he looked around his room. Thinking about his cassettes he thought about Rumble and Frenzy again. The Decepticon slowly removed himself from the berth but checked to see if he hadn’t woken up Bumblebee or his other cassettes. After making sure they were well asleep he left his room and entered his office.

It was time to call back his last two cassettes.

.~,~.

The worst thing about Soundwave was the fact that he was too honest.

Bumblebee nodded to himself as he decided that. 

It was all pretty ironic and Bumblebee knew that he would find it funny if it hadn’t been for the fact that he was discovering it all because Soundwave had kidnaped him.

Soundwave didn’t seem to understand the idea of being subtle. Don’t get him wrong. Soundwave was still the best spy, Jazz wouldn’t ever forgive him if he found out that Bumblebee had said that about him, and a genius when it came to his job. 

But.

Outside of his job? Horrible. 

For example.  
Bumblebee knew that Soundwave was still careful with giving information. The scout was paying attention in the hope of discovering anything would be of use for the Autobots and Soundwave seemed to know this. Because of this Soundwave made sure to never give details that could be used against the Decepticons. Like he never told just where he was going or what kind of job he was doing.

The Decepticon made sure to never let any useful information reach Bumblebee.

On a personal and social front however. Oh boy was that horrible.

The scout had been trying to get Soundwave to follow the rule of ‘Let Bumblebee have his own personal space’. And in the beginning it had been going well, until…

They had been sitting in silence as Bumblebee was thinking and Soundwave had been working. Suddenly Soundwave had turned to Bumblebee and had spoken.

“I was wondering something” Soundwave had begun.

Bumblebee looked away from the spot he had been staring at “Yeah?”

“I noticed a while ago that the Autobot Smokescreen seemed to be very interested in you.” Soundwave stared into Bumblebee’s optics “Are you aware of the fact his behaviour could result in a courting?”

Bumblebee had just stared at the other in shock as Soundwave patiently waited for a reply.  
“No… no… That… oh primus no. Euh. That isn’t the case. Not in the least.” Bumblebee felt awkward and uncomfortable at the thought. Him and Smokescreen? Primus no. Nothing against the other but just no. “Smokescreen and I are just friends. And that is just the way Smokescreen acts towards others.” Smokescreen was nice and stuff. But they were only friends. And Bumblebee was sure Smokescreen thought about him in the same way.

Soundwave tilted his head as he thought. After a little while he nodded “That would explain some of his more pleasure filled thoughts regarding his leader.” And soundwave turned back to his work.  
It took Bumblebee three full seconds to realise what that sentence meant and took him a lot longer to forget he ever heard that.

Bumblebee sighed as he looked up at the ceiling from his spot on the ground. He was bored. He had read though all the story files in the room and the cassettes weren’t here for him to talk to. The young mech groaned as he sat up and looked around. The room was very boring but going out was not an option for him. At least until he became that desperate that he wouldn’t mind being shot on the spot. But he still wanted to go out for a drive.

The half grounder sighed.

Right then he heard the door to the other room open. Bumblebee looked up and waited.  
The door to the room opened and Ravage ran in. The cat like cassette ran straight towards Bumblebee and made himself comfortable in the other’s lap.

Soundwave followed after the cassette and closed the door behind him.

Ravage grinned up at Bumblebee “Laserbeak is out on a mission so it will be a while before she returns!” Soundwave frowned at his cassette after removing his mask.

While Soundwave and Laserbeak were good at keeping Decepticon missions from becoming topics, Ravage wasn’t. 

Bumblebee smiled as he ignored Soundwave “Oh really? What is she doing?” He made sure to sound casual.

Ravage yawned as he snuggled close “Scouting and stuff. Really boring.” 

“Ravage. Remember what we talked about?” Soundwave cut in before Ravage could tell anything more and Bee hid a grin. It honestly was fun to see Soundwave interact with the cassettes.  
Bumblebee froze at that thought and frowned. Okay, he had been here for way to long. It was starting to affect his processor.

Soundwave walked over to the yellow mech and tilted his head as he looked down at the seated Bot “Query, why are you sitting on the floor? Berth or chair not comfortable?” 

Bumblebee looked up at Soundwave. The other sounded worried as he looked between Bumblebee and the other much more comfortable sitting places.

“I am bored.” Bumblebee stated but continued as he realised that wouldn’t explain enough “I am out of book files and I am tired of laying on the berth.”

The dark mech stared at the yellow one as he seemed to think that over and tried to think of something. 

“I see.” Soundwave stated as he walked to his desk.

Bumblebee sighed and lay back down and returned to his staring at the ceiling.

Some more time passed and Ravage was send away to patrol the ship while Soundwave continued his paperwork. 

.~,~.

Soundwave had finished up his work, of that Bumblebee was sure. How he was sure? He could feel those purple optics staring at him. 

Bumblebee sighed and sat back up as he looked at the other “Is there something?”

Soundwave stared a bit longer before holding out a datapad. “I think you will want to read this.”

Bumblebee looked down at the file before standing up and walking over to Soundwave. The yellow mech took the file over and sat back down on the berth, the floor truly was uncomfortable. He onlined the file and started to read it.

It was a mission report.

To be more precise. It was a mission report on trying to stop the Autobots from getting into a mine.  
Bumblebee quickly read though it and sighed in relieve once he was sure that his family was doing okay. Nothing in the file spoke of the Autobots having suffered any injuries. Bumblebee felt curious and reread the file, after all why would Soundwave give it if nothing had happened? He hadn’t done that before. As Bumblebee read he realised that the bots shouldn’t have won the battle like this. At least not with gaining so much energon or with so little injuries. Bumblebee frowned as he reading the details better. For a mine of that size there should have been more guards and more workers, which left two options.

Option one, This file was fake.  
Or.  
Option two, This mission had been sabotaged.

Bumblebee looked up at Soundwave as he asked “Is this a fake file? Because I have shot down enough workers and guards to know that this is not the normal defences for a small mine. Let alone a mine this big.”

The dark mech looked pleased for some reason “The file is completely real and unedited.”

Bumblebee frowned then that means…

“There may have been a small… miscommunication when setting up the workers.” Soundwave still sounded very pleased with it.

Bumblebee just looked confused as he looked back at the file. A miscommunication? “You don’t do miscommunication. Not when it is about work at least. Especially not when it is to benefit the Decepticon cause.” Bumblebee had gotten to know Soundwave good enough to know that for sure. Soundwave wouldn’t let the Decepticons suffer a loss unless there was something more important to gain out of it. 

Bumblebee looked back up at soundwave only to find the Decepticon right next to him and a lot closer then expected.

Soundwave ignored that statement or the shock as he kept looking Bumblebee in the optics. “If my information is correct your team had very little resources.” Soundwave tilted his head “Leave little possibilities for them but to look for more. Defending themselves would have already been difficult.” Soundwave leaned a bit closer to the other.

Blue optics couldn’t look away from the deep purple ones but did lean back a bit “Is that a question?” Where was Soundwave going with this? He was right of course. The Autobots had been very low on resources and that made fighting in the war a lot more difficult. 

Soundwave was still staring as he leaned in closer again. One servo next to Bumblebee to keep balance “With the energon from a small mine they would have had enough to keep going for a month.” The statement was true “How long would a mine like this one keep them going?”  
Bumblebee quickly did the math in his head and ended up at around three and a half months, four if they took it easy. “A lot longer…” Soundwave was very close. He could feel the air from Soundwave’s vents and feel the air movement from speaking on his face.

Soundwave nodded as he stood up, again looking very smug. “Correct.” Soundwave turned to the door and started to leave “I have work to be done.” He picked up his mask and put it on “I will return later with energon.” And he left.

Bumblebee was left alone in the silence and in a slight daze. His wings stood right up as he vented though the air quickly. He hadn’t even noticed he had warmed up slightly. What the pit was wrong with him?

.~,~.

It almost physically hurt to leave.

He had been close enough to feel the heat radiation from the scout.

Soundwave made sure to keep moving and keep his emotions to himself as he walked towards the bridge to get his work done quickly. Letting the Autobots get that mine had been worth it, if this was the feeling and the effect it had he would let those Autobots get a lot more mines.

The dark mech happily thought back to just moments ago. His scout was smart and had been able to quickly see that the report was not a normal situation. Which was good, this way he will be able to figure out on his own that Soundwave had been responsible for the small ‘accident’.

Soundwave managed to hide a shudder of pleasure as he thought back to how close he had been to the younger mech. Bumblebee hadn’t moved away this time and Soundwave was very happy with that positive progress. It would have been so easy to have closed the small gap that had been left between them. To push his own lips against the other’s and finally claim them but soundwave knew that doing that would not have helped. The silence and small peace between them would have been broken and Soundwave’s hard work would have been for nothing.

The dark mech entered the bridge and moved to his computer to start working on the reports for that day.

He was going slow but that was okay. Soundwave had lived most of his lifecycle without any type of affection or love aside from his cassettes. He would take his time now and do it right. He had now seen what could be and he was not going to take the risk of losing the possibility of ever gaining that.  
The goal had already been decided for this. As time went by Soundwave would make sure to work towards a more stable relationship. He may not have any experience in relationships but he had been putting a lot of time into researching them and learning about them. With the relationship he would also gain the right to hold the other as much as he wanted and finally be allowed to touch those wings. 

Soundwave had to hold his servos still above the keyboards to let them calm. His servos were just itching to finally play and stroke those wings. He had wanted to touch them while he lay in the berth with his scout but he hadn’t wanted to do that to quickly. Wings were almost as important as a spark to flyers and Soundwave hadn’t wanted to disrespect something that special. Because of this reason he was also very happy that they hadn’t interfaced in Bumblebee’s heat just yet. Now that could be done when they were together and make it that much more special.

Soundwave let his mind wonder for a bit. He would have to ask Bumblebee to remove his other seal as well, the one over his valve. He had read that it was preferable removed by either your intimate partner or a medic and Soundwave was hoping for it to be done by Bumblebee.

Soundwave send out the just finished report and moved to the next, only using a fraction of his processor power as the rest worked on his more important situation.

Before he entered a relationship he would have to court the other mech. Soundwave frowned slightly. He wasn’t sure of his flyer courting would be enough for the other and worried if he would have to add grounder courting into the mix to make sure the message came across. 

But what if it would look like an insult to the other if he mixed the two courtings together? Always being seen as different could not have been easy while growing up in a war with only grounders around. Would Bumblebee even know about flyer courting? Would the Autobots have learned him about courting at all yet? The scout had said that the Autobots saw him as their youngling. Maybe the Autobots hadn’t learned him about it to make sure they would not have to worry about some mech trying to court their charge.

But Bumblebee didn’t have his seals…

Soundwave suddenly felt a small stab of jealousy. He hadn’t felt it before and was slightly shocked by the intensity of the emotion as it bleed from his spark.

It was his logic that put a stop to the storm of feelings that had started to appear. Yes. Bumblebee may have been younger than him but he was a social butterfly as the humans would say. He made friends easily and cared a lot about others. Most likely he had troubles with his heat and asked a friend to help him out.

Soundwave quickly looked though all the information he had and relaxed again. Bumblebee still seemed new to the idea of having someone interested in him which gave him the conclusion that the scout hadn’t any real experience in relationships. Which left either his friendship theory or bumblebee had just asked a medic to remove the seals.

With that worked out Soundwave started with the last report he had to write.

There was one last problem though. He wanted to start courting the scout, but over all the different courting tradition one thing stayed the same. 

Asking the creator for permission to start the courting.

Which was a problem. As Bumblebee’s original creators were one with the Allspark. Meaning that he would have to go to the scout’s caretaker. 

After some thinking Soundwave decided he would have to ask one of the following three options.

One, Optimus Prime. Seeing as he was the Prime and the leader of the Autobots it would be the most logical choice.  
Two, his direct commander. Or whoever that had been with his time before working under the prime. The one that had taught Bumblebee everything and kept the closest eye on the scout. Sadly he wasn’t sure who that was.  
Third, his main caretakers when he was a youngling. The reason was obvious but he had no idea who that could have been.

The more Soundwave thought about it the more he started to see a next option. If he asked the whole of team Prime that should be enough as well. Seeing as the Prime, while high ranking and commanding Bumblebee, may not count as a true guardian of kinds. A Prime looked after everyone who followed him or her after all.

Soundwave frowned behind his visor as he made his way to get energon. The last report having been send a while ago now. He wasn’t sure what the right answer was or if the right answer was even among his options yet but he won’t keep working towards his goal and he would succeed. There was no other option.

.~,~.

Bumblebee was rereading that damned report about the mine as Soundwave walked in with his cassettes. The dark mech removed his visor as always and walked over to give him his new cube of energon.

The yellow mech took it without removing his optics from the report. Had Soundwave really sabotaged his own side? But why? He was missing something. Something very important.  
Ravage climbed up the berth and made himself comfortable next to the scout. Bumblebee didn’t look up but pet the cyber cat. He had and always will have a weak spot for younglings and cassettes. One of the reasons Blaster had always managed to get him to babysit his own cassettes.  
He picked up the energon cube absentminded and sipped the energon still deep in thought.   
A few breems went by before Ravage got bored and decided to ask whatever came to mind. Bumblebee tried to answer the many questions as honest as possible. The questions about the other Autobots were a bit harder to answer as Bumblebee didn’t want to give too much knowledge away about them to the Third of the Decepticons.

Ravage seemed deep in thought as he pondered over a reply “Did you also have a special someone?”

This did catch the scout of guard as he looked up shocked at the cassette and away from the report “What…?”

“Did you have a special someone?” Ravage asked his question again before continuing “You said you make friends easily and that you like about everyone. I was wondering if you liked someone more than just a friend.”

Bumblebee frowned as he studied the cassette. It could have been an innocent enough question if it weren’t for the fact that Ravage was asking it. That and the fact that Soundwave had frozen at his desk and was paying a lot more attention than he already did. Bumblebee decided to ignore the fact that he was now much more synced at Soundwave’s reactions than before.

“No. I do not.” Better keep the answer short.

Ravage did not seem to notice nor care that he didn’t want to continue this conversation “Why not? Was it just because you never saw someone who would fit as your special someone or because no one was interested in you?” Cassettes were always too blunt.

“Both I guess? I never bothered with finding someone like that.” Aside from when he was in heat but that didn’t count. “And as I am the youngest I guess they just always so me as a youngling” Bumblebee shrugged as he looked at Ravage “That answered your question?”

The cybercat nodded as he laid back down. For now done with his questions.

Silence returned but Bumblebee had noticed that Soundwave had turned around and was watching him again. Bumblebee didn’t pretend to not notice and looked up at Soundwave. They looked at each other for a few seconds before Soundwave spoke.

“Query, if you have no partner who removed your seals?” 

Bumblebee choked on his energon as he had been mid-sip and couched it up. Ravage seemed amused as he listened and the scout could hear Laserbeak groan at her creators forwardness.  
Bumblebee manage to get his breathing and vents back under control “I.. Wait… What?”

Soundwave was watching Bumblebee like a hawk. Optics staring into his own “Back in the time of your heat I noticed that both your seals had been removed” a tilt of the head “You said you didn’t have a partner who normally removes those. How did you get yours removed?”

Bumblebee felt his faceplates heating up as embarrassment filled him “What- euh. I asked a friend a long time ago and-” wait a second… why was he even explaining himself?! Soundwave did NOT need to know this! “What does it matter anyway. They are just stupid seals. Their removal isn’t that big of a deal.” There. Problem solved. 

Bumblebee looked anywhere but Soundwave as Soundwave seemed to work though the given information.

“I see…” Soundwave thought for a second before he spoke again. His voice sounded… amused? Hopeful? “The removal of seals is done by someone you trust.”

Bumblebee gave a small nod while he tried to cool his faceplates down.

“And I take you do know how that is done? The removal of ones’ seals?” Soundwave sounded a lot closer and Bumblebee could feel with his wings that Soundwave had halved the distance between them.

“Of course I know. Everyone knows how it is done…” Every youngling was learned by the time their first heat approached. Ratchet hadn’t liked giving the young scout the talk back then and had kept saying that he should not get into interfacing just yet. The medic also wasn’t amused when Bumblebee had come with the question if he could check of his seals had been removed in the right way.

“Perfect.” Soundwave sounded pleased with the answer “Then you will be able to remove my other seal as well?”

Bumblebee snapped his head up and stared at Soundwave in shock “Remove your seal- You are sealed- Wait!” soundwave had said ‘as well’. Which meant that… had he in his heat? “I… already… removed one?”

Soundwave was unashamed as he answered “Technically you didn’t remove it. But you did manage to make it get broken.”

Bumblebee felt more embarrassed than ever before in his live, even if it was with a small amount of pride as well. The third in command of the Decepticons was sealed. When in his heat he had made the rumoured unfeeling and emotionless Decepticon. The one others believed was more of an unfeeling drone to get worked up enough to break his seal.

He was so much deeper into his situation than he had originally thought.

Soundwave gave the scout some thinking time before speaking again “It was very pleasurable. I wish for the other to be removed with those same pleasurable sensation.” Soundwave stated dryly as he continued “There is no haste behind the matter of course.”

Bumblebee let himself fall backwards unto the berth as he hid his face. His faceplates were very warm and the scout was slightly worried he was going to break something. “No.” he muttered “No… just no… I am going to ignore this conversation ever happened.”

Soundwave tilted his head at the scout “I do not understand your discomfort. They are just ‘stupid’ seals after all. Their removal being ‘no big deal’.” Soundwave sounded way too smug as he used the scout’s own words against him.

Bumblebee glared between his digits “Shut it.” And he hid his face fully again. 

What made the situation even worse was Ravage who was grinning madly at the two of them. Laserbeak seemed to take a bit of pity on the scout. Even though she still sided with her creator “At least he asked it? Right? That is an improvement.” She sounded unsure but hopeful.

Ravage started to laugh as he watched.

The moment was broken as the communication system started up and Megatron’s voice sounded though the room.

“Soundwave. Report to the throne room and bring your Autobot pet.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story continues just after Megatron called Soundwav enad Bumblebee to the throne room.  
> And the Autobots have a long awaited talk with the human allies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Would you look at that. I am becoming active. Free time man. It changes a lot.
> 
> Also: Canon? Pft. Who cares about canon when writing fanfiction anyway :'D
> 
> Okay that is just a joke. Normally I try to keep close to canon but with the amount of reincarnations they all went though and with the fact I still need to finish watching the G1 cartoons I have decided to just wing it. Sorry if that bothers you but that makes up for a lot of nights of useless research in the hope of finding the official names of the different blasters and stuff.
> 
> BTW: warnings: Un-beta'd

The Four Transformers in the room all stared in shock at the communication terminal in the room.

For the first time in a long time did Bumblebee feel panicked. For the first time in weeks, maybe even months did he feel fear.

"You can't send me there!" Bumblebee looked directly at Soundwave as he said that in panic. Only know he realised just how much he had been counting on Soundwave to keep him save from the other decepticons. Especially when all of his weapons had been removed and he had no way to escape or call for help.

Soundwave was staring at him as he spoke "I… don't have a choice…" he sounded so apologizing.

And Bumblebee realised, he really didn't. Soundwave may have been the third in commend but this was Megatron directly telling soundwave to come to him, and to take Bee along with him.

Panic was rising "No… no no no no. This can't be happening." Bumblebee stared in panic at Soundwave "Please. Do anything. I don't care what or what I need to do to pay you back for it but please!" If he went had to go to Megatron he would be killed. Bumblebee was sure of it.

Soundwave looked away from him as he spoke "I can't… I am sorry…"

Bumblebee stared before looking down, his wings hanging low in fear but also sad acceptance.

Laserbeak looked between the mechs and spoke "Maybe Megatron will only want some information?" She tried in the hopes of cheering the two up.

"The last time he asked me for information it ended with me losing my voice-" Bumblebee froze as his servos shot up to his throat in protection "My voice! No… not again" please not again.

That seemed to set dark blue mech into action as he opened some drawer and pulled out the yellow mech's old translator "Here."

Bumblebee stared in shock at it as he took it over "You kept it?" the yellow mech looked at the other shocked.

"It was yours. Even when no longer needed it was still yours." The dark colored mech was looking at the door "Put it on and talk though it again if you need to… Lord Megatron may not realise your voice has been repaired."

Bumblebee looked at the other shocked "You didn't tell him?"

Ravage jumped in bee's lap "There was no need to tell Megatron."

"But if we don't go soon he may send others…" Laserbeak looked unsure between the mechs as she spoke.

Soundwave nodded and put his visor back on. Bumblebee put on his translator and let the protective armour appear around his scarred throat. Once ready the two left the TIC's room and started to walk towards the throne room.

.~,~.

The way there was spend without any talking. Laserbeak and Ravage went ahead to ensure they wouldn't meet anyone threatening on the way. Some vehicons did come by but those were quickly ignored.

Bumblebee didn't feel right being out in the open. His Autobot mark proudly displayed on his chest suddenly felt much more like a target.

The dark hallways of the Nemesis didn't help as Bumblebee treat to calm his spark down from its terrified pulsing.

They arrived at the door to the throne room much to quickly. Soundwave opened the door and the two walked in.

The dark grey mech with red optics was sitting on the throne, looking down on the two arrivals. Soundwave gave a half bow as he stopped before him. Bumblebee stood frozen in place as the giant decepticon looked at them.

"Ah Soundwave. I was already starting to think I would need to send anyone over." The mech's voice almost made Bumblebee shudder. The yellow mech tried to activate his weapons ones more but found that they had still been removed.

Soundwave just stared at his leader and played a recording of Knockout saying there wasn't any problems.

Megatron nodded and looked at the much smaller mech. "Prime's scout. I see you are still in one piece."

Bumblebee's spark was pulsing in fear and Bumblebee had the strong instinct to run back to the door. His optics shot to the door before going back to Megatron. Part of him wanted to look at Soundwave for some kind of reassurance but decided to not show just how terrified he was of the situation.

Megatron turned to Soundwave "Soundwave. You can leave now. I believe you still have work to do on the bridge."

Bumblebee's wings shot up as he looked between the decepticon lord and Soundwave. He wouldn't right? Soundwave wouldn't leave him here… right?

"Lord?" Soundwave replied with a small recording from Starscream.

Megatron just waves Soundwave off "Don't worry. Your plaything will be ready to be picked up again after a cycle or two."

Bumblebee had taken to giving Soundwave and the little deployers a slightly desperate look as he screamed at Soundwave in his mind 'Don't leave me with him! Please!'

The dark mech was silent but turned around and walked towards the door. Bumblebee felt betrayed for some reason. The Autobot looked at the little cassettes and noted that they hadn't moved away yet. Both looked confused at Soundwave leaving but dind't seem willing to just leave Bumblebee to his fate.

Megatron looked annoyed at the cassettes and spoke "Leave with Soundwave or accept punishment." The two didn't move at the threat but suddenly both looked up and at Soundwave, who was waiting by the door.

Laserbeak left first and lifted up and flew towards her creator. Ravage left slower but joined the other two.

The door closed and Bumblebee was left alone with the Decepticon lord.

.~,~.

' _Why are we leaving!_ ' Ravage was screaming at her creator though their bond.

' _We need to be in there for Bee! What if Megatron is going to hurt him?!_ ' Ravage kept looking back at the door they were walking away from.

Soundwave quickly checked around them and heard not saw anyone. "Lord Megatron won't hurt Bumblebee. He gave him to me. He is honourable, he won't come back on that."

Ravage snorted ' _Yeah right! If that is the case why call us to him and order us to leave Bumblebee there?!_ '

Laserbeak had been quiet before but softly spoke over the bond ' _Master. Could we maybe stay near the throne room? Just in case? We won't interfere unless needed._ '

Soundwave kept walking as he thought. He trusted his lord. Megatron was honourable and he had gifted the Autobot to Soundwave. It slightly sickened Soundwave to think of Bumblebee as property but that is how the other Decepticons saw the Autobot now and Soundwave believed that his lord would never damage another's property unless it was as punishment, and Soundwave never earned punishments.

' _Please sir…. Please we will be quiet and not interfere but we can't just leave him there… Bee was afraid and has nothing to defend himself with._ ' Ravage was looking at him begging.

"Very well. Stay hidden. It isn't needed but… It is better just in case." Soundwave gave his two symbiotes the go ahead and Laserbeak did a small somersault in the air to go back while Ravage disappeared into a vent.

Soundwave walked all the way to the bridge where he stood at his normal spot.

His spark was demanding him to turn back to his Autobot to ensure he was save. That he was undamaged and that he truly was only being spoken to by Megatron.

Soundwave trusted Megatron. Megatron had long ago told everyone that the only one allowed to damage and play with the Autobot was Soundwave. Megatron would not come back on that… right?

The Autobot had been with them for 24 day cycles. Almost 15 joors. That was so much time for Megatron to suddenly change his mind right?

Soundwave stood in front of his normal terminal as he tried to keep his mind focused on his work. The quicker he finished the sooner he could go back to the throne room.

He was a Decepticon. Decepticons were made to battle the corrupt Autobot council. Megatron was an ex-gladiator and leader of the Decepticons. He wanted to corruption to stop and an honest chance for all.

Soundwave frowned behind his visor. Okay so maybe the Decepticon leader had been slightly more focused on getting power and spreading fear instead of the old Decepticon ways but war changed mechs. It was to be expected. But throughout the changes the Decepticon lord was still honourable and trustworthy and should be treated with respect.

As long as he was faithful he would be treated with the respect he had earned.

Megatron had let him live back when they had been gladiators.

Soundwave had earned the Decepticon's lord's trust and respect.

He would not ruin that by reading his lord's mind.

He wouldn't.

Soundwave ignored the part of his processor that whispered that no one would ever know. That it was just to give his spark some rest knowing that his master would not hurt his scout.

The mind reader finished another report and looked around him.

No one except him was on the bridge.

His mind whispered again, no one would know.

He sighed, spoke a small apology to his lord and concentrated on the minds on the ship. And he found the two in the throne room quickly.

"- _perish at my servo, or the servos of my followers._ "

Soundwave stopped and concentrated, his lord was thinking and speaking at the same time.

" _This will do two things. One, Show the Autobots their place. And Two, get some of my frustration out. Goodbye. Scout._ "

Soundwave had left the terminal and was running towards the throne room.

.~,~.

The door closed as Soundwave left and Bumblebee felt like that had sealed his fate.

But Soundwave wouldn't have left him if it had been dangerous right?

Bumblebee felt like slapping himself for that. What was he thinking?! Thinking he could count on a con like that. Of course Soundwave would leave him to die without a second thought if his  _Lord_  sad it.

Thinking about lord.

Bumblebee turned back to keep an eye on Megatron. This was bad. This was really bad.

"If it isn't the  _Legendary scout._ "

Reaaally bad.

The decepticon rose of his throne and walked over. The scout couldn't help but take a few steps backwards. The grey mech smirked as the small mech showed fear.

"Ah! It seems like you do know your place."

The Autobot stopped walking back and he glared at the giant mech in anger. This only seemed to amuse the Decepticon as he walked to the scout. The yellow mech managed to stay still while the Decepticon walked around him.

"Curious." Megatron spoke as he circled the yellow mech "Seems like Soundwave does keep his toys in well condition." At that sentence Bumblebee's servos turned into fists but he kept quiet.

Megatron chuckled "Oh well. I will make it up to Soundwave later with some new toy."

Bumblebee didn't have time to realise what it meant as a fist hit his side hard and he heard more than felt his armour crack and break under the pressure. The force of the hit forced Bumblebee almost to his side on the ground but his quick reflexes saved him from ending on the ground.

Bumblebee turned to watch the other mech for the next attack and already saw another fist coming his way. Bumblebee could only move backwards and twist to the side in the hope of escaping the blunt of the attack.

The giant mech smirked and readied his endarkened energon sword.

The Autobot felt his spark pulse in panic, pushing him to do anything to keep him safe.

" **I thought I was supposed to be from Soundwave or something?** " the beep-ing sounded strange to himself but he had to try.

Megatron chuckled "You are an Autobot. Meant to be whatever you are useful as. Now? As a message and some stress relieve." The sword came down in an attack.

Bumblebee jumped out of the way but heard the sword chip his armour. Megatron was fast, too fast.

"Run for as long as you can Autobot. In the end you will be one with the All Spark." Megatron seemed to enjoy the fear coming from the Autobot.

No, Bumblebee was sure that Megatron was enjoying this. But the Decepticon was right. Bumblebee had no weapons, his transformation cogs were all offline and his communication systems were jammed.

He was stuck. He was alone. And he was going to offline.

Megatron moved forwards into another attack and Bumblebee managed to dodge the sword sadly Megatron seemed to have expected this and kicked the Autobot in the chest and forced the Autobot to fall back.

Bumblebee groaned as he tried to get back up only for Megatron to stand on his chest, sword raised.

"And now it is time to do what I should have done a long time ago." The Decepticon smirked at the defenceless Autobot. "I must admit. There are not many who have managed to escape their fate for so long." The sword was raised above his head "But yours, much like all the other Autobots, was always to perish at my servo, or the servos of my followers."

Bumblebee tried to twist free but winced as he heard his chest armour crack.

Megatron smirked once more "This will do two things. One, Show the Autobots their place. And Two, get some of my frustration out. Goodbye. Scout." And he brought the Dark Star Saber down.

Only to curse as something attacked his faceplates.

Bumblebee stared in shock as Laserbeak was scratching and attacking the faceplates of her fractions leader. Next Ravage attacked the undefended side of the grey mech and started to tear the cables open there.

The weight on his chestplates disappeared and Bumblebee started to raise again. His armour was protesting but he ignored those.

The two symbiotes were tearing into Megatron but neither seemed to do much damage. Bumblebee spotted the door and ran towards it, finding it locked but he expected that. He didn't mind as he started to try and hack the locks on the door. He hadn't tried to hack the locks on Soundwave's room but that hadn't been because he couldn't hack it, but because it wouldn't have mattered at that point in time.

But now he just needed to get away from that power crazy mech.

Bumblebee typed furiously into the touchpad of the lock and slowly made his way into the coding of the lock, looking for a way to disable it. He heard the hiss of the doors unlocking and believed he had made it just in time.

Only to feel a servo grab his wing and a harsh pull throw him backwards into the throne room. He groaned and rolled to his side, his wings haven taken the full damage from his fall. He moved to get back up when the Dark Star Saber was slammed into his wing and into the ground beneath him. A scream of pain escaped him but was transformed into a harsh screeching sound by the translator as the sword went straight into the ground.

Next thing he felt was a weight on his helm. Blue optics opened again and he tried to turn to look up but something held his helm in place. Megatron held his pedal on his head.

The con smirked and started to step down.

His helm felt like it was being split open.

Oh wait. It was.

Bumblebee felt his helm starting to crack and almost sobbed in pain. Help. Please…

The yellow mech tried to twist free away but the pain from the Star Saber in his wing kept him in place. His mind reminded him of the small symbiotes who had come to help him and tried to focus on one last thought and call for help.

Please. Please Soundwave, please help… please…

The pressure was increasing and he saw his vision starting to blur. His optics were starting to crack.

He heard an angry growl from someone in the room and suddenly the weight was gone.

.~,~.

Soundwave was running towards the throne room, he would have transformed and flew but the hallways weren't open enough for him to safely make the turns, and crashing would take to much time that he did not have.

In the back of his mind he heard his cassettes scream at him to get to them. That Megatron had gone insane and was attacking Bumblebee and that they were trying to stall for time.

He should have stayed.

Soundwave turned another corner and spotted the door. He got there and got ready to unlock the lock when he noticed the lock had already been inactivated. He pushed open the door and stalled.

His cassettes were both on the ground and covered with some rumble to keep them both down. Megatron was standing over his Autobot. The Dark Star Saber in one of those fragile wings and a pedal on the poor scout's helm. Which was cracked and energon had started to leak out.

Soundwave activated his feelers and grabbed the other ex-gladiator. One around the petal which was forcing his scout down, another around the arm holding the Star Saber and the other two around the shoulders and chest. Once all the feelers were secure did Soundwave pull with all his might.

Surprise was on his side as he managed to flip the grey mech off of his scout. Soundwave ran forward and removed the Dark Star Saber from the wing which made the scout whine in pain. Soundwave wanted to drop to his knees next to the scout to apologise for the harsh treatment and the unintended pain he had caused him.

But there was something else he had to finish first.

Soundwave turned towards the Decepticon while his feelers moved to quickly removed the rumble from his precious symbiotes.

Megatron stood back up from the other side of the room and growled at soundwave "What do you think you are doing Soundwave?"

Soundwave didn't even answer the other mech as he raised his feelers ready to attack and held the Dark Star Saber in his servo. Ravage and Laserbeak ran over to stand by Soundwave.

' _Ravage, Laserbeak. Stay with Bumblebee_ ' Soundwave spoke to his cassettes over his bond as he kept looking at the Decepticon lord.

Ravage growled at Megatron before running over to check on the yellow mech. Laserbeak flew around the room once more before joining the other cassette.

"This is treason Soundwave." Megatron made his displeasure clear in his voice. "Stop with this foolishness and hand over my Star Saber."

Soundwave didn't move to hand it over. In matter of fact, he raised the weapon in warning.

"Soundwave! You will stop this foolish behaviour!" Megatron growled as he looked over the situation "Is this about the Autobot pet? You will get a new one but you will stop this." Soundwave didn't move to listen.

Megatron glared at his third in commend "Cease this behaviour now and hand over the weapon! And that is an order!" and Soundwave did stand up a bit straighter. Megatron smirked, finally his Third in Commend was coming around.

Suddenly a sonic blast was shot straight at Megatron smashing him into the back wall.

Megatron groaned as he looked up, seeing that the cassette master had transformed his servos into his old sonic weapons which had been much used when the mech had still been on the frontlines but had been put away when Soundwave had focused on the data progressing, but it seems like the weapons and systems were all still installed.

Which would not make battling the other easy as Megatron knew from experience.

Megatron lifted himself up from the floor and away from the now dented wall "You are making a mistake Soundwave. A big one." Megatron readied his own weapons. "This is your last chance Soundwave. Stop this traitorous behaviour and give me back the Dark Star Saber."

Soundwave just raised his sonic blaster which had replaced one of his servos. Normally the blaster would be by his chest plates and the area by the cassette docking station but that had been remodelled a long time ago, he would have to see to remodel it back but that was a problem for later. The other servo raised the Star Saber.

The Decepticon leader growled as he moved to attack.

Soundwave had waited for it and his feelers attacked right away. Soundwave knew that the grey mech was fast and he would need to keep his at a distance if he wanted to win.

In the gladiator pit that is where it had gone wrong. Megatron had gotten near him and defeated him. Now Soundwave was planning on keeping Megatron back and keep himself out of arm reach. If he wanted to win and get his scout out of here safely he would need to overpower Megatron before any of the other officers got back from the relic hunt.

' _Master. We patched what we could but these wounds need a medic._ ' Laserbeak sounded worried.

Correction, Soundwave needed to finish this really fast so he could help Bumblebee.

Megatron stood with his arms raised as he laughed and smirked "Go ahead and try Soundwave. You had earned my respect but after this?" Megatron gave a regret full shake of his head "You were part of something greater. Of the Decepticons. But all of that thrown away. For an useless piece of scrap."

Soundwave wasn't really listening to the other. He was focused on looking though Megatron's mind to look for what he would do next. What his next attack would be and how to block that.

Megatron activated his own blaster and took aim to shoot. Soundwave pulled his feelers back as he shot another sonic blast at the larger mech. Megatron dodged most of the force and moved to attack Soundwave from the side. The dark blue mech didn't move away from his spot between the downed Autobot and the Decepticon leader as he left the other come closer. Megatron transformed his blaster into another sword and moved to attack.

Soundwave had been waiting for that as he shot another sonic blast at point blank. The force hit and pushed the other mech back just a bit. This was enough for Soundwave to move forwards and shoot him again at point blank.

Soundwave kept this up until the other mech was right by the wall. When there he called for his feelers and attacked the grey mech. The feelers easily penetrated though the armour and the cables beneath it.

Megatron was immobile at the wall.

Soundwave had won.

Megatron stared for a nanoklik before he started to chuckle before that transformed in a full blow laughing fit.

"Ah Soundwave. It is a shame it had come to this. But I always knew that if my life-cycle were to end it would have been at the servos of another Decepticons. The Autobots are just too weak to ever do what was needed." The grey mech smirked.

And that was the problem. If Soundwave ended the Decepticon lord all the alarms in the Nemesis would go off at the offlining of the lord's spark signal. All the officers would be called back and would attack Soundwave. Making an escape impossible.

Soundwave stared at Megatron before raising a feeler, and scattering the transmitter from the Decepticon lord. Next the feelers keeping the grey mech in place moved and grabbed the metal of the walls and twisted these around and through the wounds. Effectively keeping the grey mech trapped in the twists of the metal and unable to comm. link for help from any of the vehicons.

Soundwave turned away from Megatron once he was completely stuck and made his way to Bumblebee. The yellow mech was still shuddering and slightly whining in pain as his cassettes stood by him guarding.

The dark mech dropped to his knees next to the yellow mech and quickly looked at the cracks on the other's helm and on the wings. He quickly checked the temporary welds and bonding.

' _Ravage. Get to the groundbridge and get us somewhere safe and ensure that the coordinates get deleted once it closes. Laserbeak. Make sure that all the vehicons and eradicons are busy and away from the throne room and the bridge._ '

Both the cassettes looked at soundwave.

"Got it boss!" Ravage nodded and ran towards the vent, but not before hissing at Megatron one last time.

Laserbeak flew over to Soundwave and gave her cassette master a quick nuzzle before flying off to complete her own mission.

"So you are going to flee!? Like some weakling! Come back here and finish this fight Soundwave! Have some honour!" Megatron was displeased.

Soundwave turned to look at Megatron for a second before turning back to Bumblebee as he used a large comination of the different officers to commute what he wanted to say "Megatron lost his honour a long time ago. When Megatron destroyed youngling centre." Soundwave didn't look at the Decepticon leader. "Soundwave. Blind to changes. But not anymore. Megatron lost the cause. Lost the values the Decepticons had had." Soundwave finished the bindings on the wounds and lifted the scout up in his arms. "Endarked energon destroyed Megatron's mind. But end of Megatron's spark in Prime's servos."

Soundwave walked towards the door of the throne room and left it ignoring the enraged screams of the Decepticon lord.

Once outside Soundwave quickly closed the door and relocked it.

Once that was done he stared to quickly move towards the bridge while holding Bumblebee close to him.

.~,~.

Pain was splitting open his processor. His doorwing was sending error after error and hurt like pit.

But he was online.

Soundwave had returned after all.

Bumblebee hadn't understood most of what was going on. The pain to blinding and deafening for him to make out details but he knew a few things for sure.

One, Soundwave had come back for him. Two, Soundwave had saved him. And three, Soundwave had fought against Megatron to save him.

Bumblebee had been shocked about this but right now he was only relieved as Soundwave got him out of there. Out of that pit of pain. They were walking in the dark halls of the Nemesis and Bumblebee finally felt his spark calm down. He was out of danger.

"I apologise."

Bumblebee looked up just slightly, just enough to show he was listening.

"I should have stayed with you just in case. I should have focused on his mind from the start."

Bumblebee frowned slightly "'his mind'? Why not just mine?" Bumblebee was slightly shocked at hearing his own voice. Huh. His translator must have gotten damage. He should probably remove it but he was tired and everything hurt.

"I never listen in on your thoughts. It is rude and disrespectful." Soundwave answered without a second thought.

Bumblebee wanted to continue questioning but he heard the sound of heals hitting the metal of the floor and froze as panic returned to his spark.

"Soundwave! I see you are taking your Autopet out for a moment?" Bumblebee recognised that voice and shrunk slightly closer to Soundwave and silently begged in his mind. Please don't let her close. Please keep her away.

He knew he couldn't fight right now. He couldn't handle much more of this stress.

The arms holding him just pulled him closer to the dark blue chestplates.

Soundwave used Megatron's voice to address the femme "Airachnid." And Bumblebee felt the other turn slightly and the young scout called up all of his old training to act like he was in recharge.

The clicking sound stopped was the femme stopped "I see you finally decided to tame the Autobot?" Bumblebee wanted to turn away, hide the damage and wounds from the hunter but stayed still.

"Airachnid purpose?" Soundwave made sure to use the inpatient voice of Megatron.

"Well, I was wondering if I could borrow the pet for a small torture session. Or if I could have the record of the next lessons he is thought." The femme's voice was all business as she spoke. "I have been meaning to send a message to Arcee to get some revenge on her for destroying my ship and collection-"

"Negative."

Femme and Soundwave were both silent as the femme stood in shock and the mech made sure to keep her in sight at all times.

Bumblebee could hear the smile in her voice when she spoke. "I am sure we can work something out Soundwave. You are a logical mech. I am sure-" and she gasped.

Bumblebee frowned and onlined his optics just slightly only to stare in shock.

The femme was trapped against the wall with Soundwave's feelers keeping her trapped. One feeler came up to the side of her head with the transmitters for communication was located and the feeler ripped it off and crushed it. Next the feelers ripped the metal walls into ribbons and tied the femme to the wall.

"What do you think you are doing?! Let me down!" the femme was screeching in displeasure as she tried to get lose.

Soundwave let a small smiley face appear on his mask before playing of a recording.

"Always watch out for the quiet ones."

After that he turned and continued walking. Leaving the femme to shout after him.

This was too much to think about right now. He was tired. He hurt.

And he knew it in his spark.

He was save.

Bumblebee fell back in recharge as Soundwave entered the groundbridge.

* * *

 

A blast sounded around the Autobot base.

Optimus sighed as he listened to Ratchet yelling at Wheeljack to keep the experiments down.

He was worried.

Very worried.

Soundwave had taken Bumblebee at a moment of inattention.

Now 15 joors had past and they hadn't found any trace of the youngest member yet.

Optimus sighed as he looked at the computer.

No message from Bumblebee. Nothing from the Decepticons. And no reaction to the question for a trade to get the young mech back.

The leader had seen Arcee go through more training dummies than they could make but her anger had disappeared. Now she was just sad as she waited for any signal of her friend who was more of a brother.

Optimus sighed sadly.

They had told the humans what happened 13 joors ago, about 22 days ago. Mostly because Rafael had been very worried about where his guardian had been.

They had explained that Bumblebee had been taken by the cons and that they hadn't heard anything of it yet.

"I am sorry. Optimus?"

The prime looked up at the sound of the voice and saw the creator figure of Arcee's charge and Agent William Fowler.

"Good morning miss Darby and agent Fowler." Optimus greeting the two human allies with a nod "What can I help you with."

June smiled sadly as she looked back at the kids. Raf was sitting sadly on the couch half-hearted playing with the game station there. Jack was trying to entertain him while Miko was ones again trying to convince Bulkhead that they should just storm the Decepticon base.

June sighed "I am worried about Bumblebee. He has already been gone for almost a month. If Jack had been taken…" She looked back at the kids "It must be horrible for you all."

Optimus gave a small nod "Thank you for your kind words."

"You are all so close." June smiled softly "Like a family."

"We are in many ways a family." Optimus spoke softly as he thought back to the Ark. And even further. The war back on Cybertron "Many of us lost the bonds we had. The Autobots that came together became a family without the bonds."

June stood up straighter "You told us about these bonds. It was like marriage right?"

Optimus paused for a nanoklik before answering "It could be seen as such. But in our case we bind our very being to the other. There is no breaking this bond. It is until we are one with the allspark. And sometimes even further."

"You are afraid the Cons will use that?" Agent Fowler asked it straight away. "Are you afraid they will force him to do that?"

Optimus stood up straighter "Never. No one would risk it."

"How so?" June looked worried.

"To touch another's spark is the deepest most horrible thing someone could do in our kind. It is a privilege only meant between sparkmates and has always been respected." Optimus was deeply troubled by the mere mention of someone doing that.

June and Fowler shared a look before Fowler spoke again "Will the Cons respect that?"

Optimus nodded "It is part of who we are. None will do that."

"But didn't Soundwave already got freaky with Bee right? What will stop him?" Miko had suddenly appeared and seemed honestly curious as she asked that. June looked disapproving at the young girl as she spoke without thinking.

Optimus seemed lost in what to say or how to explain before looking at the medbay where he saw Ratchet working "Old friend? I need your help explaining the matter of sparkmates and the norms belonging with that." Ratchet looked up from his work but walked over.

"What is wrong Optimus? You are able to explain it just fine." Ratchet looked at the humans and at Optimus in confusion.

"Well. Agent and miss June said that they were afraid that the Cons would try to force a bond on Bee. But OP said they wouldn't. But we don't understand why they wouldn't." Miko was leaning against the railing as she quickly summed it up.

Ratchet was about to speak when he paused for a minute, like he wasn't sure how to explain it. "Our kind is very different than your kind. As we explained before, we have heats. There heats show when our sparks are stable and ready to support a bond."

June looked up "Like reaching adulthood?" Ratchet nodded.

"Much like that yes. Only when a spark enters a heatcycle they could support a sparkbond. Before that it is already part of familybonds but a sparkbond is different." Ratchet took his time explaining "A familybond gets made when the sparkling is still being carried. The sparkling is so close to the carrierspark that the bond is made from the start. The sire also makes a bond with the sparkling y sparkfeeding energy to the carrier and sparkling." Ratchet waved off any questions.

"I understand it is confusing but it isn't important right now. The matter is that sparks are tricky things, and very stubborn. Once a spark bonds to another spark this bond can not be broken. It is forever." Ratchet concluded as if it was the easiest matter in the world.

Miko looked ready to keep asking, most likely what this sparkfeeding was and how the sparklings were made but June stopped her.

"Okay. So no fear for bonding. But what about Stockholm syndrome?" June looked worried as she spoke the name.

Both Optimus and Ratchet paused and tilted their heads to the side to quickly look up things on the internet.

Ratchet was the first to finish searching "What has a city to do with the situation?"

June gasped "You don't know Stockholm syndrome?!" She looked really worried "It is where a captive starts to feel sympathy towards their captive! You all said that Soundwave could read minds. What if he tries to use that to control Bumblebee's and makes him believe he wants to be there and-"

"Calm down miss Darby. I have found what you are worried about but that is not a problem for us." Optimus stopped the woman from panicking.

June looked up "It is not a problem for you?"

Optimus nodded "We do not function as your kind does. We have two driving factors. Our processor. And our spark."

Miko jumped up "oh! Like our brain and our heart?"

"Not really." Ratchet answered "For you. Your only driving factor is your brain. It decides what to do, how to react and moves your body. Your heart just functions as a pump keeping you going."

Optimus stopped Ratchet before he got to medical "We have our processor and our spark. Our processor looks though information works through it and gives results. It makes our body move. In many aspects it functions for the same matters as your brains. But our personality. Our will, our wishes, our dreams and emotions are all send from our spark. The processor reacts to what the spark feels. The two work so closely together that they are often in complete sync." Optimus continued.

"This stockholm syndrome, while we do not have it we have something like it. Called Processor Submission. It is when the Processor reacts to the stress and fear of the spark. If the spark is in too much stress and pain in certain situations the processor will step in and prevent the body from reacting and will often submit to the torture which has triggered these emotions as a way to protect the owner of the spark and processor.

"However, this does not affect the spark in any way. The spark will still want to fight, escape the pain but the processor will keep the owner save. But when the situation changes. The spark and processor both will return to the old situation and fight for freedom." Optimus looked at the others calmly "Our sparks can not be swayed. They are too stubborn and will forever fight if they feel in danger."

Miko looked really interested "Is that why they can't force a bond? Because the spark is to strong?"

"If someone tries to force a spark to bond the spark will refuse. And if a sparkbond is refused the spark will perish, taking the one trying to force the bond with it." Ratchet looked over at the humans "Even mates don't always dare to set the step. Afraid to perish if their sparks don't agree at the last second." Ratchet looked at the humans "When a spark makes its choice it is final."

The humans stared in shock. Miko hummed and smiled "It is kinda sweet. You love the other so much you give your very being to them and they do the same in reverse."

Optimus nodded "That is indeed what sparkbonding is about." The human girl seemed content as she moved back to Raf and Jack, who had been listening in on the whole matter.

Fowler and June also walked off to talk about the new things they had learned.

Ratchet sighed softly as the humans went on their own way.

Optimus looked at Ratchet as the medic spoke "I am worried."

The prime nodded in agreement "Me too old friend. Me too…"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was planning on not adding the autobot part but it needed to be added to ensure some things were understood and explained.  
> I was planning on a small between chapter but in the end decided to just add it after all.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time for a long awaited confrontation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Would you look at that. Another chapter. only a month this time! woooh!  
> okay. so vacation? I love it. I love being lazy. so there. there is the reason for the waiting time. Woops.
> 
> Warning: Un-beta'ed

The darkness of the evening was broken by a blue light ordinating from a swirling pool of light. A dark blue mech carrying a yellow figure walked out of it followed by a cat like mechanic and a flying one.

The blue light disappeared right after the four and the dark blue mech looked around the area. Scanning it for any danger.

The silence returned as the figure stood in the middle of the small field they had entered when leaving the blue portal.

The flying creature landed on the dark mech’s shoulder after flying around the field and the trees surrounding the small field.

“ _I believe it is safe sir._ ” The female flyer seemed calm as she reported her findings.

The cat like transformers was still sniffing the ground around them and still scanning it but didn’t disagree with her findings.

The standing mech didn’t relax until Ravage was done with his scanning and gave the “ _All clear boss_ ”. But once he got it Soundwave relaxed and quickly moved to the side. Out of view of the field and under the protective layer of the trees from the sky.

“Laserbeak, Ravage. Both of you keep watch” Soundwave gave one last look around the lines of tree before he slowly kneeled down on the ground and moved his arms. By moving his arms he pulled the mech in his arms into the open and away from his chestplates.

The yellow mech was still unconscious.

Soundwave laid the mech gently unto the ground on the mech’s side to unsure that he was not hurting any more.

After laying the mech down went soundwave to look into his subspaces. He always had a few medic tools with him and some spare energon but this would not be enough to last them for more than a few days.

The dark blue mech pushed the worry about the energon away for now as he set to work to welding the wounds on the doorwing and the yellow helmet. Most of this was done in silence, the only thing that broke it were the quiet moans and whines in pain and the quiet apologises from the normally silent mech for hurting the other.

It took longer than Soundwave wanted it to but that didn’t matter. He managed to close the wounds to the best of his abilities but it would still demand a medic.

Soundwave sighed sadly as he gently stroked one of the two wings as the other rested. Had he had the supplies and time to study he would have been able to repair the damage much better, but he didn’t had either.

“ _What do are we going to do boss?_ ” Ravage asked over their mind link as he scanned the surrounding area.

Soundwave sighed as he looked up from the scout and looked trees. He knew what he needed to do, didn’t mean he was happy with it. But he replied, knowing his symbiotes would hear him “Bumblebee is in need of repairs. Repairs done by a medic.”

Both Laserbeak and Ravage were quiet before Laserbeak replied “That would be best sir. And we will help.”

Soundwave felt gratitude to his cassette as he nodded “I know you two will.”

Ravage appeared from the bushes and sat down next to his cassette master “So how are you going to break the news to the Autobots what happened?”

.~,~.

The Autobot base was calm.

Well, as calm as things could be with Miko asking questions about every single thing that involved cybertronium relationships. Poor Bulkhead just couldn’t keep up with his charge’s questions and thoughts.

Jack had taken to trying to get Miko to stop with the questions, while Raf had taken to sitting with Ratchet and asking small questions about the situation. Ratchet hadn’t been sure which to answer and which weren’t appropriate to answer, it was a difficult situation.

Optimus was slowly making his way through the information on the relics when a small message appeared.

The Prime tilted his head slightly, a human habit he had started to copy, and cautiously scanned the message. It seemed to just be a message, no files attached to it which could contain a virus but the sender and origin coordinates were heavily encrypted.

The red and blue truck quickly checked over his shoulder pads and saw that everyone from his team was still busy. The last Prime opened the message and set to work on deciphering it.

The coordinates at the bottom was the easiest to work through. The text itself took a lot longer but it was worth the time. Especially when the message itself became clear.

 _To the Autobot Optimus Prime, formally known as Orion Pax._  
This message is about the Autobot known as Bumblebee.  
The situation has been changed and I am willing to meet with you about a possible return.  
If you still have this wish the negotiations can start.  
Come Alone.  
If you do not there will be no talking about a possible return.

_Sincere, Soundwave._

Following the sincere was a line of numbers which lead to some forest a country or so away. Optimus reread the message and frowned, another human habit, as he leaned back and thought.

Finally a message. Finally a signal that their scout was still alive.

Optimus looked back at the group and signalled Ratchet over. The medic looked slightly puzzled but left his tools to see what Optimus wanted to talk about.

Before the white with red mech could ask anything he was already motioned over to the message on screen. Ratchet read the message while Optimus waited for his friend’s reaction. He saw his old friend tense up, his servos change into fists and afterwards move to one of the wrenches not too far from him. Optimus put his own servo on the shoulder of the other to stop him from throwing it.

“My old friend.” Optimus started but Ratchet glared at him.

“This is clearly a trap.” The medic snapped before glaring at the message again.

The Prime nodded and sighed “I am aware of that… but it is a risk I am willing to take.” The leader looked at the medic “And I know that you would have as well.”.

The red and white mech sighed and looked back at the others “How are you going to explain to them?” The medic looked slightly amused “More important, how are you going to keep Arcee from following you?”

“I was hoping you would help a friend out…” Optimus started as he looked at the femme not far away “She is very stubborn and when two higher ranking officers were to tell her…”

Ratchet was smiling and shaking his head “IF you are going on a suicide mission you can tell them about it yourself.”

“What should Optimus tell us himself?” Smokescreen was looking at them curiously as he stood close by. His question seemed to trigger all the other bots and humans there.

Optimus and Ratchet both looked slightly unsure with how to start before Ratchet just looked at Optimus expecting, leaving it up to the Prime on how to tell his team.

The leader looked at the members of his team before starting “A message has appeared, regarding Bumblebee.”

Raf jumped up from his seat as he smiled happily. Arcee pushed forwards and stopped right in front of Optimus “When are we moving out? I am ready to-”

Optimus held up his servo to stop Arcee from continuing.

“The message included an invitation for negotiations to get the Decepticons to return Bumblebee.” Optimus looked over them “However, this includes a demand that I go alone to the coordinates” he hadn’t even finished his sentence before the bots started to protest. Optimus calmly waited for them all to say what they needed, all of them speaking at the same time making him unable to hear most of the complains.

What was most surprising was how suspiciously silent a certain femme was. Arcee hadn’t even started to give her own protest. She had moved to the computer to read the message. Jack was the first to notice this and he walked over to her guardian.

“Cee? Is something wrong?” Jack could hit himself for that “Well, more than… you know.” He tried again awkwardly. The motorcycle seemed to be glaring at the message but Jack could see her optics moving, and knew she was still reading it. Jack himself looked at the translated message curiously but it just said what Optimus had already said but with Soundwave’s name on it and-

“Soundwave is really proud on being a Decepticon right?” Jack asked the bots, he knew the answer but he needed to check.

The others stopped their talking and turned to Jack. Optimus was the one to answer the question “Soundwave was one of the first, if not the first, to join Megatron’s ranks and the Decepticon army. At the start of the war he helped Megatron define the rights they would fight for.”

Jack nodded, ignoring Wheeljack’s comment about “Filthy cons.”. Jack turned back to Arcee, knowing she had seen it too.

“Why would someone that loyal to the Decepticons not add the Decepticon name to his own name?” Jack questioned as he looked at Optimus “He added the whole Autobot thing to both you and Bumblebee… But not the Decepticon name to himself?”

Silence filled the room as Ratchet quickly reread the message and turned to Optimus. The prime was already checking the original message but shook his head “There is not a word about the Decepticons in the original message.”

Wheeljack snorted “It must be a trap. That is obvious.”.

“I don’t know Jackie.” Bulkhead started as he had a thoughtful face “It is Soundwave. To him his loyalty to the Decepticons is the most important thing.”

Wheeljack shrugged “So? That old buckethead probably ordered him to not add that to make it stand out and to get Prime to agree to it.”

“Would he think that up though? I mean, we didn’t even notice.” Smokescreen questioned.

All the bots looked unsure, most humans did as well. With an exception of Miko, who looked rather excited.

She was grinning from ear to ear as she read the message “Well I think it is a great idea!” Miko grinned “Optimus goes there, keeps into contact with us. We have that portal bridge thing ready-”

Ratchet groaned “Ground bridge. It really isn’t that difficult.”

“-And if anything goes wrong we open it and save the day. Easy as pie!” Miko continued as if no one had interrupt her.

Raf looked at the girl curiously “But it is Soundwave. He would jam all communication right?”

The human girl just waved it off with an ‘it will be fine!’.

Jack gave his friend a suspicious look “You mean. You think it is a good idea to let Optimus go alone?” The human girl just nodded “You mean. That _you_ will not follow him to wherever he goes?”

A grin was Jack’s answer as she spoke “But of course not. I follow the action, not negotiations.” She looked rather proud on herself as she sat back on the couch and picked up her guitar “And honestly? I am very sure that when Optimus returns he will tell us all about what he and Soundwave are going to talk about.”

The youngest human looked confused as he sat next to the older girl “How are you so sure it will be okay? How are you so sure that… everything will be okay?” Raf didn’t seem willing to speak to early about Bee’s wellbeing.

Miko smiled as she spoke “You guys may not always agree with this, but I am not stupid. Sure, school? Not my strongest quality. But I know people. And I have learned a lot about you bots. I have spent the last few days thinking and have come to a conclusion about this situation.” She proudly petted one of her notebooks in her bag. Raf eyed it curiously before looking at Miko again.

“Nope, little guy.” Miko grinned “Not going to show it just yet. Just sit back and enjoy the show. Bee is alright and will be home soon. At least if OP goes and meets Soundwave about this matter.”

The bots all looked confused at the human while Ratchet and Optimus shared a look. Seemed like the human girl had come to the same conclusion they had thought as a possibility a while ago.

Was it possible that Soundwave’s spark had decided on who it wanted as sparkmate?  
And more important, was Soundwave aware of this? Were the Decepticons aware of this?

Arcee walked over to Optimus as she looked the Prime straight in the optics “I want to join to retrieve Bumblebee… But I know that if Soundwave gets the idea that you didn’t follow the ‘come alone’ order…” The femme seemed to struggle but was determined “I will make him pay. For all the stress he has caused Bee. But I want Bumblebee back first… And if that means staying at base. I will for now.” The Femme was still looking straight at Optimus “But I will be ready. If those Cons try _anything_ I will be ready to give backup.”

The prime nodded with a small smile “I know Arcee. And I thank you.”

Ratchet sighed but nodded “Fine. Send back you will be there. But we will make plans to ensure your safe return and a way for you to send a message if anything happens.”

The Prime nodded and made the reply to Soundwave in the same encrypted way. The other had done that for some reason, and if it wasn’t a trap Optimus wanted to be sure that everything went without trouble.

Optimus tried to keep himself from getting to much hope as this was most likely a well-crafted trap by the Decepticons. His spark and the matrix resting there were both calm.

He just hoped he would be able to get the youngest Autobot finally back home with the team.

.~,~.

The red, blue and white mech exited the groundbridge in a forest in the early morning. The light of the sun was slowly creeping through the leaves above and illuminated the way. The Prime looked around as he scanned for any other mechs, the portal still open behind him. The scans returned negative and Optimus relaxed his battle stance.

“I have found no signal of others near me. I am going forward.” Optimus spoke over the communication line as he started to walk forwards.

A small relieved sigh came over before Ratchet spoke “Understood Optimus. I will close the portal. Keep the line open so we can follow your location.”

“I will my friend.” Optimus continued walking as the light of the portal disappeared.

After the Bots had replied to the message they had nervously waited for the time. They had a location but no time and so they had waited. It only took a small moment before a reply had appeared. All that the message had read was a time.

With that time and the coordinates within the original message they had set to work. They checked the area and knew that there were no earthly elements that could break up the communication lines between them. They had carefully made plans on how to handle this meeting to ensure success.

One of those plans included an open communication line. One that would stay open until Optimus had returned to base. If anything went wrong on the mission Optimus would close it. Even if Soundwave would make talking over the line impossible the line could remain open. If the line were to close they would know that Optimus needed help and they would open a groundbridge right by Optimus and move out to help their leader.

But until that happened, it was all up to Optimus.

Optimus continue to walk forwards and saw that the forest was opening up. Soon he entered a large field.

The Prime continued to walk until he heard a voice call him to a stop. He stopped and looked around. He spotted the small symbiotic on a tree branch.

“Laserbeak.” Optimus spoke calmly and paid close attention to the surroundings. He was out in the open and in a, possible, dangerous position.

The bird like cassette was staring at the Prime “That communication link. Do they hear all what is said or only you?”

Optimus shouldn’t have been surprised, communication was Soundwave’s position. “They can not hear all that is being said.”

“A basic link then. Nothing to complicated. Just a way to stay into contact.” The voice came from the ground and Optimus spotted the panther like cassette close to the ground, partly hidden.

Laserbeak seemed to think for a bit before speaking “Not meant to listen in but to ensure safety. Simple links like those are easier to transmission and for that reason a lot harder to block without attracting attention.” The small symbiote seemed almost impressed.

The other nodded “That won’t endanger the position.”

“Endanger for who?” Optimus spoke calmly and both the cassette seemed to remember he was even there as they both looked at the mech.

Both seemed to think before Laserbeak answered “Position should remain as hidden as possible.” After that the cassette flew off the branch and went to fly around the surrounding forest. The cassette near the ground remained silent but watched Optimus closely.

Optimus thought the answer over for a bit. All the Autobots were already aware of this meeting and the location, Soundwave must be aware of his fact. Were the Decepticons worried about the people from MECH? They never seemed to see them as a problem before.

A few minutes went by before Laserbeak landed again. The second she landed the cyber cat rose.

“Okay let’s be clear on this for a moment. We have no interest in fighting. Any signal of any type of groundbridge and we are out and so is your chance to ever see your teammate again.” The cyber cat jumped up on a tree branch “Is that understood?”

Optimus made sure that both the symbiotes saw him nod as he answered “I understand.”

Both of the minicons looked at the Prime before Laserbeak continued where the Ravage had left off “Good. Sir will want to speak about a matter that concerns the Autobot Bumblebee. However, you will need to stay calm while the situation is explained.”

“I will listen.” Optimus waited for the next condition but the small transformers seemed to be done as they both got ready and waited, both hyper alert.

Optimus didn’t hear anything but he saw a shadow walk from the other side of the field. The shape made it obvious it was Soundwave but the shape seemed off.

Soundwave walked out into the open and Optimus felt fury fill his spark.

In the Decepticon’s arms was Bumblebee. Who was badly damaged.

Optimus was considering how to alert his team of the situation and how to get his scout away from the Decepticon when Soundwave tilted his head just slightly and Laserbeak flew down a bit.

“Sir didn’t damage Bumblebee!” she spoke quickly, trying to keep the Prime from outright attacking her creator “That damage is the reason for us being here…” The small flyer stopped speaking and looked at the other cassette.

Ravage was still on the branch in the tree but looked ready to jump down as he spoke “He needs medical attention. And a lot of it. It is why we contacted you.”

Optimus paused as he looked at the three Cybertroniums “Wat happened?” Optimus made sure to keep his voice steady and calm as he spoke “If you were not the one to damage him.”

Ravage rolled his optics but Laserbeak answered “Megatron.”

“I see…” Optimus looked at Soundwave “You spoke of negotiations in your message. What do you wish to talk about?”

Ravage grinned as he sat up more while Laserbeak seemed worried.

“You see big mech. That matter is easy.” Ravage spoke calmly and slightly amused “You want Bumblebee back obviously. Seeing as Bumblebee needs medical help that is the most logical choice. However, we didn’t spend so much time working to getting him and boss to be in the same space together before to just give that up.” The cybercat spoke of it casually while all the others in the clearing tensed up, Soundwave even shot his symbiont a disapproving look. “So you can understand. That while we all agree and want Bumblebee to get his repairs we do not want to just give him to you and that be it.” Ravage stopped and grinned at the Prime.

Optimus looked at the small mech before looking at Soundwave with a slight glare. Soundwave responded by taking a slight step back and pulling the yellow mech closer to himself.

“And what is it that you suggest?” Optimus spoke calmly but distrusting.

Ravage just grinned.

.~,~.

Ratchet was looking at the screens in front of him as he waited for the link to Optimus to just blink out. The others of the team were ready while the humans sat on a spot on the railing to get a clear view of the groundbridge.

Everyone was tense as they waited.

Suddenly Optimus’s voice filled the room “Optimus too base. I am ready to return to base, please open a groundbridge. But prepare the medbay.”

Everyone froze as Ratchet pointed at Smokescreen and Arcee to prepare the medbay while Ratchet himself opened the groundbridge.

The others of the team all looked nervous as they saw a shadow walk towards them through the blue swirling mass of the portal.

Optimus walked out and everyone was ready to be relieved when they noticed who was in his arms. And in what state he was in.

Ratchet spotted the scout and ran over to Optimus and Bumblebee and quickly checked his wounds. The medic quickly noticed the welts keeping the wounds closed. Ratchet gave the Prime a look, expecting an explination.

Optimus looked at the others but before he could say anything another voice spoke.

“So this is the base? Honestly, I expected more. Oh well whatever works.” The bots and humans quickly turned and saw Soundwave and his two symbiotes stand by him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... lets all be honest here. Who saw that coming? Please raise hands if you did.


End file.
